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THE    ELEMENTS 


or 


MOEAL    SCIENCE 


THEORETICAL  AND  PRACTICAL 


BY 


NOAH    PORTER,    D.D.,   LL.D. 


PRESIDENT  OF  YALE  COLLEGE 


NEW  YORK 
CHARLES    SCRIBNER'S    SONS 

1885 


lt>J/ 


h^ 


Copyright,  1884, 
By  CHARLES  SCBIBNER'S  SONS. 


ELECTROTYPED  AND  PRINTED 

BY    BAND,    AVERY,   &  COMPANY, 

BOSTON,  MASS. 


THIS  VOLUME 

IS  GRATEFULLY  INSCRIBED  BY  THE  WRITER 

TO  THE  MANY  HUNDRED  PUPILS  WHOM  HE  HAS  INSTRUCTED 

FOR  NEARLY  FORTY  YEARS, 

SO  MANY  OF  WHOM  HAVE  BEEN  AND  ARE  STILL  HIS 

JOY  AND   PRIDE   FOR  THEIR  FIDELITY 

AND  ZEAL  IN  LIVES  OF  DUTY 

AND  USEFULNESS. 


I  I 


PKEFACE. 


The  treatise  now  offered  to  the  public  was  written  prima- 
rily for  the  use  of  college  and  university  students  in  their 
preparation  for  the  class-room.  It  supposes  some  familiarity 
with  psychological  and  philosophical  studies,  and  a  willingness 
to  think  closely  and  earnestly  concerning  the  important  ques- 
tions which  relate  to  man's  duties  and  his  moral  responsibil- 
ity. In  preparing  this  volume,  the  author  has  endeavored  to 
meet  the  wants  of  those  students  and  readers,  who,  though 
somewhat  mature  in  their  philosophical  thinking,  and  disci- 
plined in  their  intellectual  habits,  still  require  expanded  defi- 
nitions and  abundant  illustrations,  involving  more  or  less  of 
repetition.  Had  it  been  his  design  simply  to  state  and  defend 
his  own  views  of  the  theory  and  practice  of  morals,  in  a  strictly 
scientific  form,  he  would  have  written  a  somewhat  different 
book.  It  is  not,  and  was  not  designed  to  be,  in  form  a 
scholastic  treatise ;  although  it  takes  cognizance  of  both  the 
psychological  and  metaphysical  foundations  of  ethics,  and  aims 
to  trace  all  its  conclusions  to  ultimate  facts  and  principles. 

For  the  opinions  expressed  in  this  treatise,  the  treatise 
itself  is  responsible ;   and  it  must  stand  or  fall  with  the  rea- 


VI  PREFACE. 

sons  which  are  offered  in  support  of  its  leading  positions. 
Both  the  opinions,  and  the  grounds  of  them,  are  the  fruits 
of  more  or  less  reading  and  reflection  ;  and  none  of  them  have 
been  inconsiderately  adopted.  It  is  possible  that  the  theory 
of  morals  will  be  thought  by  some  to  have  been  treated  with 
too  great  fulness  and  minuteness.  But,  in  the  view  of  the 
writer,  the  most,  if  not  all,  of  these  theoretical  questions  have 
a  more  or  less  directly  practical  bearing,  and  are  sure  to  be 
important  in  the  crises  of  actual  life.  For  the  completeness 
of  this  part  of  the  work,  a  somewhat  full  and  critical  exhibi- 
tion of  the  progress  of  ethical  speculation  is  also  required. 
Such  an  historical  sketch  the  author  had  intended  to  furnish, 
but  was  deterred  by  the  fear  of  making  his  treatise  incon- 
veniently large,  and  was  therefore  compelled  to  content  himself 
with  a  few  scanty  and  incomplete  historical  notices. 

The  practical  discussions  and  enforcements  may  seem  to 
some  of  his  readers  to  be  too  long ;  to  others,  too  brief.  The 
author  has  aimed  to  treat  all  questions  of  this  kind  in  the 
light  of  the  principles  which  underlie  them,  and  to  leave  to 
his  readers  to  supply  many  of  the  special  applications  which 
would  naturally  suggest  themselves.  He  earnestly  hopes  that 
the  discussion  of  many  of  these  practical  questions  may  be 
a  healthful  logical  and  moral  discipline  to  many  persons  of 
both  sexes,  and  lead  them  to  invest  a  life  of  duty  with  the 
dignity  and  respect  which  properly  belong  to  it.  Especially 
does  he  desire  that  the  enforcement  of  social  obligations  may 
awaken  in  the  minds  of  young  persons  a  more  enlightened 
judgment,  a  more  fervid  faith,  and  a  more  ardent  zeal  with 
respect  to  those  institutions  which  give  to  Christendom  its 
organic  life. 


PBEFACE.  Vii 

To  one  topic  he  has  endeavored  to  do  ample  justice,  and 
that  is  the  theoretic  import  and  value  of  the  Christian  ethics, 
—  a  topic  which  seems  to  him  to  have  been  surprisingly 
neglected  by  English  writers,  notwithstanding  that  the  English 
literature  is  so  abundant  in  ethical  treatises,  the  most  of  which 
were  written  by  Christian  theologians,  and  from  the  stand- 
point of  supernatural  Christianity.  "While  the  author  has  scru- 
pulously avoided  urging  its  claims  to  superiority  from  any 
higher  than  its  human  excellence  and  human  authority,  he 
sees  no  reason  why  the  New  Testament  should  not  be  fairly 
considered,  in  regard  to  its  ethical  rank  and  significance,  by 
the  side  of  the  Nicomachean  Ethics^  the  De  Officiis,  Butler's 
JSermons,  or  Spencer' s'Dato  of  Ethics. 

With  these  remarks,  the  treatise  is  commended  to  the  favor- 
able judgment  of  thoughtful  readers,  at  a  time  and  in  a  coun- 
try when  and  where  ethical  questions  ought  to  be  seriously 
considered,  wisely  answered,  and  fearlessly  applied  to  public 
and  private  life. 

NOAH   PORTER. 

Yalb  College,  January,  1885. 


OOI<rTENTS. 


PAGK 

Introductory 1 

§  1.  Moral  Science  defined.  Definition  provisional  and  imperfect. 
Popular  use  of  the  term.  Scientific  supposes  a  popular  knowledge. 
Also  a  practical  application.  —  §  2.  What  is  duty  ?  Sense  in  which 
action  is  used.  Includes  the  character  and  habits.  Moral  Science 
is  a  science  of  the  ideal  as  truly  as  of  the  actual.  — §3.  Grounds  for 
believing  duty  to  be  a  reality,  or  at  least  worthy  our  study.  —  §  4. 
The  analytic  method  gives  the  divisions  of  Moral  Science.  (1) 
Ethics,  or  classified  rules  of  practice.  Ethics  includes  casuistry. 
(2)  Morg,!  Science  proper.  Involves  psychology  of  the  moral  pow- 
ers. (3)  Involves  a  theory  of  conscience.  (4)  Psychology  carries 
us  to  a  philosophy.  —  §  5.  Synthetic  method  changes  the  order,  and 
gives  us  (1)  Moral  Science  proper,  including  psychology.  (2)  Pro- 
ceeds to  ethics.  (3)  Includes  and  develops  the  doctrine  of  rights. 
(4)  Casuistry.  (5)  Recognizes  Christian  ethics.  —  §  6.  The  study 
important.  (1)  The  subject-matter  legitimate.  (2)  Especially  for 
professional  and  public  men.  Every  educated  man  must  discuss 
questions  of  duty.  (3)  Conducive  to  faith  in  duty.  (4)  Practically 
useful.  Especially  on  critical  occasions.  (5)  Moral  Science  not 
superseded  by  a  supernatural  revelation.  (6)  Is  favorable  to  faith 
in  the  Christian  revelation. 


PART  I.— THE  THEORY  OF  DUTY. 


CHAPTER  I. 

Man  a  MoRAii  Person,  psychologically  considered 21 

§  7.  The  moral  nature.  How  misconceived.  Moral  experiences  in- 
volve man's  threefold  powers.  —  §  8.  The  sensibility,  other  appella- 
tions for.    Act  of,  distinguished  from  the  intellect.    (1)  Subjective. 


CONTENTS. 


PAGl 

(2)  Dependent  on  the  intellect.  A  possible  exception.  Opposing 
views  and  objections.  (3)  Uniformly  pleasant  or  painful.  Appellar- 
tions  for  power,  acts,  and  states.  —  §  9.  The  element  of  desire  dis- 
tinguished from  the  element  of  emotion  proper.  Object  of  each  of 
these  elements.  Special  use  of  "desire."  —  §  10.  Consciousness 
attests  the  analysis  given  of  emotion  and  desire.  Desire  of  an 
object  for  its  own  sake.  —  §  11.  Possibly  exceptional  instinctive 
impulses.  —  §  12.  Objections  to  the  position  taken.  (1)  We  are  not 
conscious  of  referring  to  subjective  good.  (2)  The  object  desired 
fills  the  mind.  (3)  The  instinctive  desires  do  not  follow  this  rule. 
(4)  Much  less  do  the  affections.  The  analysis  does  not  concern  the 
voluntary  affections.  Testimony  of  Leibnitz.  Of  Bishop  Butler. 
Of  Jonathan  Edwards.  Of  Dr.  J.  "W.  Alexander.  — §  13.  Desire 
of  happiness  not  co-ordinate  with  any  of  the  special  affections  or 
desires.  No  single  desire  can  be  resolved  into  the  desire  of  happi- 
ness. Why  called  a  rational  desire  by  eminence.  Why  miscalled 
"self-love."  —  §  14.  Sensibilities  distinguished  as  simple  and  com- 
plex. —  §  15.  Also  as  primary  and  secondary.  The  love  of  money. 
Associated  sensibilities.  Two  classes  of.  Strength  of  the  second- 
ary sensibilities.    Their  number  and  complexity. 

CHAPTER   n. 

The  Sensibilities  classified 42 

§  16.  Sensibilities  not  easily  classified.  Proposed  scheme  of  classifi- 
cation. Drs.  Reid  and  Stewart.  Sir  William  Hamilton.  Dr. 
Thomas  C.  Upham.  Dr.  William  Whewell.  —  §  17.  The  sensibili- 
ties differ  in  the  natural  quality  of  the  good  which  they  condition. 
Views  of  Paley.  Jeremy  Bentham.  John  Stuart  Mill.  No  single 
term  for  every  kind  of  subjective  good.  Pleasure  and  satisfaction, 
blessedness  and  happiness,  good  and  well-being.  Worth,  value, 
and  utility.  —  §  18.  The  sensibilities,  as  emotions,  are  simply  pas- 
sive. Sensibilities  act  under  certain  conditions.  Apparent  excep- 
tions in  bodily  experience.  Dependent  on  attention.  — §  19.  Effect 
of  repetition.  Exception,  the  bodily  appetites.  Effect  of  familiar- 
ity, the  soldier  and  surgeon.  Butler's  distinction  between  active 
and  passive  habits. —§20.  Sensibilities  active,  or  act^impelling. 
Activity  used  in  a  variety  of  significations.  Activity  not  limited  to 
the  will.  —  §  21.  Sensibility  diverse  in  different  individuals.  Differ- 
ences, natural  and  acquired. 

CHAPTER  in. 

The  SENSiBiLnTES  as  modified  by  the  Will 57 

§  22.  Sensibilities  not  independent  of  the  will.  Voluntary  power,  acts 
and  effects,  appellations  for.  Two  and  three  fold  division  of  the 
powers.     Locke's   division.    Jonathan  Edwards's  division.     Dr. 


CONTENTS.  Xi 

PAOB 

Thomas  Reid's  division.  Dr.  Thomas  Brown's.  Diigald  Stewart's. 
Kant's  division.  Professor  Thomas  C.  Upham's.  —  §  23.  The  sup- 
position that  man  had  no  will.  Might  possess  a  distinctive  charac- 
ter.—§  24.  Questions  concerning  the  will  are  largely  psychological. 
Testimony  of  consciousness.  Special  terms  in  all  languages.  Emo- 
tions and  desires  distinguished  from  volitions.  Self-approbation 
and  self-condemnation  imply  the  belief.    Pre-eminently  remorse. 

—  §  25.  Speculative  objections.  (1)  Involves  the  denial  of  causative 
energy.  (2)  Is  inconceivable.  Explained  by  final  cause.  (3)  Ex- 
cludes possibility  and  usefulness  of  experience.  Lessons  of  expe- 
rience often  held  with  a  proviso.  Case  of  Andrew  Marvel.  —  §  26. 
How  far  is  history  an  exact  science  ?  Inconsistent  with  foreknowl- 
edge on  the  part  of  God.    God's  foreknowledge  unlike  that  of  man. 

—  §  27.  Freedom  introduces  a  new  element  into  science.  Also  into 
the  philosophy  of  man.  The  positivist  and  evolutionist  deny  free- 
dom. Argument  in  reply.  Intelligence  implies  freedom.  Freedom 
leaves  a  field  for  historical  and  political  science.  Necessary  and 
free  phenomena  distinguishable.  Literature  recognizes  and  requires 
freedom.    The  antinomy  between  the  two. 

CHAPTER  IV. 

The  "Will  defined 77 

§  28.  What  the  will  is  not.  (1)  Not  a  power  to  execute  the  volitions. 
Statement  of  Hobbes.  Statement  of  Locke.  Statement  of  Antony 
Collins.  Statement  of  Jonathan  Edwards.  Liberty  as  properly 
applied  to  the  intentions  as  to  the  actions.  Liberty  and  freedom 
negative  in  form,  but  positive  in  fact.  (2)  Not  a  power  to  choose 
without  a  motive.  The  greatest  apparent  good.  J.  S.  Mill  distin- 
guishes the  fatalist  and  necessitarian.  (3)  Does  not  exclude  mo- 
tives to  the  contrary.  (4)  Not  a  power  to  choose  to  choose,  nor  to 
choose  to  act.  Edwards's  argument  against  the  infinite  series.  —  §  29. 
Positive  views  of  the  will.  (1)  In  its  conditions.  (2)  The  activity 
sui  generis.  Attested  by  consciousness  from  an  emotion.  Reason 
why  the  activity  is  least  familiar.  Objection  that  consciousness 
testifies  only  of  acts.  Conception  of  power  derived  from  spiritual 
activity. —  §  30.  Why  does  the  man  choose  as  he  does?  Question 
ambiguous.  —§  31.  Various  senses  of  will,  volition,  etc.  The  force 
spiritual,  not  material.    Spiritual  force  not  necessarily  free. 

CHAPTER  V. 

Effect  of  Volition,  —  Choice,  Disposition,  and  Character.    .    .    92 

§  32.  The  result  or  effect  of  an  act  of  volition.  The  effects  within 
the  soul.  A  slJtte  of  choice.  Effects  upon  the  emotions. —  §  33. 
(1)  Choices  that  are  speedily  executed.  (2)  Choices  that  are  longer 
in  execution.  Examples.  Choices  of  ideal  excellence.   Choices  that 


XU  CONTENTS. 


TASE 

affect  the  character.  —  §  34.  (1)  Such  choices  may  rarely  or  never 
be  repeated.  (2)  The  act  may  be  repeated  more  or  less  frequently. 
A  state  of  choice  tends  to  perpetuity.  —  §  35.  Permanent  purposes 
objects  of  moral  approval  and  disapproval.  Why  does  the  man 
choose  so  and  so  ?  The  question  admits  of  different  senses.  Lib- 
erty of  will  pertains  to  moral  relations  only. 


CHAPTER  VI. 

The  Chabacter  as  Natural  and  Voluntary 103 

§  36.  Pity  and  fear.  Character  voluntary  and  involuntary.  Ele- 
ments of  character.  Julius  Muller,  on  character  as  related  to  will. 
—  §  37.  Disposition  as  natural  and  moral.  Theory  which  resolves 
disposition  into  habit  only.  Moral  responsibility  for  character. 
How  far  are  men  responsible  for  their  opinions?  —  §  38.  Changes 
and  culture  of  character.  The  man  as  contrasted  with  his  volitions. 
The  involuntary  blends  with  the  voluntary.  The  involuntary  fol- 
low their  own  laws.  The  necessity  of  moral  trial.  Belations  of 
moral  weakness  to  the  purposes  of  God. 


CHAPTER   VII. 

The  Intellect,  its  Functions  in  the  Moral  Activities  and  Expe- 
riences   112 

§  39.  Activity  of  the  intellect  in  moral  phenomena.  Ethical  processes 
and  categories.  —  §40.  Evidence  for  the  reality  and  importance  of 
moral  relations.  (1)  They  are  universally  recognized.  (2)  Vocab- 
ulary found  in  all  languages.  (3)  Esteemed  most  important.  —  §  41. 
Originate  in  the  individual  man.  Referred  by  many  to  one  or  more 
of  three  sources:  (1)  the  will  of  God,  (2)  the  civil  law,  (3)  the  law 
of  public  sentiment.  Locke's  explanation  of  the  moral  law. — 
§  42.  I.  Moral  distinctions  do  not  originate  in  the  civil  law.  Rea- 
sons given:  (1)  To  some  it  is  the  only  recognized  standard.  (2)  Cer- 
tain actions  are  determined  by  statute.  —  §43.  Reasons  against:  (1) 
Obedience  to  law  is  enforced  by  higher  authority.  (2)  Laws  them- 
selves are  judged  to  be  right  or  wrong.  (3)  Laws  are  rightfully 
resisted  and  disobeyed.  —  §  44.  II.  Moral  relations  do  not  originate 
with  society.  Adam  Smith's  theory.  Objections  to  the  social  the- 
ory. —  §  45.  Relation  of  evolutionist  to  the  social  theory.  Herbert 
Spencer  and  Adam  Smith.  Growth  of  altruism.  Conception  and 
law  of  duty,  how  generated.  Does  not  explain  the  conception  of 
absolute  morality.  —  §  40.  III.  Moral  distinctions  not  originated  by 
the  fiat  of  the  Creator.  William  Occam.  Jeremy  Tla^'lor.  William 
Paley.  Richard  Cumberland.  Nathanael  Culverwell.  Richard 
Hooker.  Stephen  Charnock.  Reasons  against  this  theory.  Com- 
mands of  God  prove,  but  do  not  make,  actions  to  be  right  or  wrong. 


CONTENTS.  xiii 

PAGE 

Moral  analogous  to  mathematical  relations.  —  §  47.  Objections 
against  the  independence  of  moral  relations.  (1)  Variety  of  specula- 
tive theories.  Difference  between  the  discernment  of  a  concrete 
and  an  abstract  relation.  Argument  from  the  interest  manifested 
in  ethical  theories.  (2)  Men  find  practical  difiiculties  as  truly  as 
speculative.  Reply.  Men  are  agreed  in  respect  to  what  their  pur- 
poses should  be.  Also  in  respect  to  many  actions.  Reasons  for 
disagreement  in  respect  to  others. 


CHAPTER  VIII. 


Origin  and  Nature  of  Moral  Relations 


§  48.  Conclusion  of  preceding  chapter.  Theory  very  common  that 
moral  relations  are  simple  and  indefinable.  —  §  49.  Held  in  various 
forms.  (1)  The  theory  of  the  moral  sense.  —  §  50.  (2)  The  theory  of 
the  moral  reason.  — §  51.  (3)  The  theory  of  the  practical  reason,  or 
categorical  imperative.  —  §  52.  IV.  The  theory  that  they  are  the  pro- 
duct of  a  special  application  of  self-consciousness  and  will.  These 
theories  tested  by  consciousness.  —  §  53.  (1)  Moral  qualities  affirmed 
only  of  spiritual  beings  and  their  voluntary  acts.  (2)  Of  such  acts 
and  states  when  tried  by  man's  natural  capacities.  —  §  54.  (3)  By 
these  natural  capacities  as  indicating  the  end  for  which  he  exists. 
—  §  55.  (4)  These  processes  of  reflection  give  the  elements  of  moral 
good  and  evil.  (5)  These  processes  can  be  performed  at  an  early 
age.  Experiences  of  childhood. — §56.  Are  continued  after  devel- 
opment into  manhood.  The  standard,  or  law,  is  ideal. — §  57.  Pro- 
vides for  man's  relations  to  his  fellows.  Supremacy  of  moral  law 
provided  for. — §58.  Recapitulation.  —  §59.  Recapitulation  and 
synthesis.    Relation  to  metaphysical  and  theological  theory. 


CHAPTER  IX. 

The  Moral  Feelings 152 

§  60.  Place  of  the  emotions  in  an  ethical  theory. —  §  61.  (1)  Feelings 
of  self-approval  and  self-reproach.  —  §62.  (2)  Obligation.  Feeling 
and  judgment.  The  elementary  feeling  considered  first.  Is  felt 
towards  a  person. — The  feeling  is  unique. — §  63.  Not  limited  to 
our  fellow-men.  Lifted  up  to  God.  — §  64.  Obligation  driginally 
respects  the  claim  of  another.  The  external  symbolizes  and  sug- 
gests the  internal.  Supposed  mystery  of  obligation.  Kant's  cate- 
gorical imperative.  Warburton's  saying.  Theory  of  this  treatise. 
Janet's  exposition.  —  §  65.  Theory  of  Thomas  Brown.  Hutcheson's 
doctrine.  Warburton's  criticism  on  Shaftesbury,  Clarke,  etc.  Dif- 
ferent interpretations  of  Kant.  J.  A.  Froude.  Herbert  Spencer. 
Kant's  relation  to  Spencer.  James  Martineau. — §  66.  (3)  Sense  of 
merit  and  demerit.    Supposes  society,  —  a  complex  emotion. 


xiv  CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER  X. 

PAOV 

Objections,  Replies,  and  CouNTKit-oBJECTioNS 165 

§  67.  Objections  to  our  theory.  (1)  The  processes  required  suppose 
impossible  acts  of  reflection.  Reflection  needed  to  gain,  but  not  to 
apply  them.  (2)  Implies  that  moral  distinctions  should  be  origin- 
ated at  too  early  an  age.  Requires  only  such  relations  as  an  infant 
can  master.  (3)  Resolves  moral  into  sellish  relations.  The  position 
of  a  judge  differs  from  that  of  an  actor.  Voluntary  benevolence, 
when  exercised  and  estimated,  is  alike  unselfish.  (4)  Does  not 
explain  sense  of  obligation.  (5)  Supposes  an  actual  trial  of  right 
and  wrong.  —  §  68.  Counter-objections.  I.  The  intuitional  theory. 
(1)  Unnecessary,  and  therefore  unphilosophical.  (2)  Contradicts 
the  testimony  of  consciousness.  (3)  Superadds  a  relation  that  is 
superfluous.  (4)  Cannot  account  for  the  ethical  emotions.  (5)  Con- 
founds intuitional  judgments  with  those  rapidly  formed.  (6)  Is 
self-contradictory.  (7)  Incapable  of  consistent  application  in  prac- 
tice. (8)  Does  violence  to  the  natural  desire  for  well-being.  Lotze's 
criticism  on  Kant.  Ueberweg's.  (9)  Introduces  a  strife  between 
two  legitimate  impulses.  II.  The  theory  of  moral  sense.  Anal- 
ogous to  aesthetic  sensibility.  Defects  of  this  theory.  III.  The 
theory  of  the  practical  reason.  Reverence  before  the  law  is 
a  sensibility.  —  §  69.  The  theory  of  Bishop  Butler.  Butler  gives  no 
analysis  of  the  moral  faculty.  Defective  statement  of  the  principle 
of  reflection.  Following  nature  according  to  Butler.  Fails  to  do 
justice  to  final  cause.  Does  not  explain  the  ethical  emotions. 
James  Martineau's  criticism  of  Butler. 

CHAPTER  XI. 

The  Extkrnai.  Actions  :  Their  Moral  Quality  and  Relations  .  188 

§  70.  Hitherto  we  have  been  concerned  with  the  feelings  and  pur- 
poses. Morality  cannot  be  limited  to  the  intentions.  The  actions 
also  important.  — §  71.  Reasons  why  they  are  important.  (1)  They 
execute  the  purposes.  (2)  They  manifest  them.  (3)  Make  them 
more  energetic.  (4)  Confirm  them  into  habits.  —  §  72.  Rules  for  the 
feelings  include  rules  for  the  actions.  Certain  actions  are  invariar 
bly  right.  Many  actions  are  obligatory  only  in  the  majority  of 
cases.  Exceptional  cases  which  justify  themselves. — §73.  Moral 
significance  of  actions  varies  with  manners.  Modes  or  manners 
vary.  Morality  of  the  Chinese.  — §  74.  Sometimes  exceptions  are 
frequent.  Maxims  of  prudence.  Private  and  individual  codes.  — 
§  75.  Objection  stated  and  answered.  Important  advantages  from 
this  arrangement.  Men  responsible  for  thoir  judgments  as  truly  as 
for  their  conduct. —§  76.  The  commanding  duties  of  life  admit  of 
rare  exceptions. —  §  77.  The  end  justifies  the  means. —  §78.  The 
calculation  of  consequences.  Every  person  more  or  less  influenced 
by  the  community.    True  relation  ol  end  to  means.    Difference  be- 


CONTENTS.  XV 


PAGB 

tween  a  change  in  the  terms  related,  and  a  change  in  the  relations. 
—  §79.  Direction  of  the  intention.  —  §80.  Tlie  noblest  feature  of 
Christian  ethics.  —  §  81 .  -Esthetic  quality  in  ethics.  Moral  beauty 
in  feeling  and  in  act.  The  beauty  of  virtue,  how  conceived  and  de- 
scribed. Appropriate  garb  of  virtue.  Virtue  often  misrepresented. 
Vice  coimected  with  grace  and  beauty  of  manners. 


CHAPTER   XII. 

Diversity  of  Ethicaii  Definitions  and  Theories 208 

§  82.  The  acknowledged  diversity  of  definitions  and  theories.  Ap- 
plied to  a  wider  or  narrower  field.  Right  and  wrong  may  be  lim- 
ited to  a  solitary  individual.  Right  and  wrong  when  limited  to 
these  relations.  —  §83.  When  other  beings  are  introduced.  When 
the  Supreme  is  considered.  These  groups  of  relations  do  not  ex- 
clude one  another.  Different  theories  represent  more  or  fewer 
relations.  —  §84.  Right  and  wrong  applied  to  different  subjects- 
matter.  Primarily  only  to  the  voluntary  purposes.  —  §  85.  Absolute 
and  relative  rightness.  —  §  86.  In  what  sense  is  morality  eternal  and 
immutable?  They  always  suppose  moral  beings.  Permanent  and 
fixed  relations  of  the  inner  activities.  — §87.  The  emotions  equally 
permanent  and  uniform. 

CHAPTER   Xin. 

The  Education  and  Development  of  the  Moral  Judgments  and 
Feelings 217 

§  88.  Moral  judgments  and  feelings  seem  to  be  dependent  on  circum- 
stances. One-sided  and  extravagant  statements  in  two  directions. 
—  §  89.  Two  lines  of  inquiry.  Ethical  development  of  the  individ- 
ual and  the  community.  —  §  90.  (1)  Ethical  growth  of  the  individual. 
Early  lessons  of  self-control.  Lessons  of  subjection  to  others.  Dis- 
tinction between  responsibility  to  others  and  to  one's  self.  The 
development  and  recognition  of  a  standard  within.  Final  discov- 
ery that  this  law  is  in  his  own  nature.  These  steps  not  independ- 
ent of  instruction. 


CHAPTER  XIV. 

Social  Influences  as  Helps  or  Hinderances  in  Morals  ....  223 

§  91.  Classes  of  social  influences.  The  family.  Society,  law,  and 
religion.  —  §  92.  (1)  They  do  not  originate  the  ethical  judgments 
and  emotions. —§  93.  (2)  They  aid  and  quicken  the  intuitional 
power.  These  agencies  train  and  discipline. — §94.  The  relation 
of  extra-ethical  to  ethical  motives.  Self-approbation  and  self- 
reproach,  how  modified.    Mens  conscia  recti,  etc.  — §  95.  The  sense 


XVI  CONTENTS. 


PASS 

of  obligation  and  the  authority  of  our  fellows.  — §  96.  Standards  of 
moral  beauty,  how  far  variable.  The  fundamental  principles  never 
openly  assaulted.  External  agencies  cannot  teach  error  so  effec- 
tively as  the  truth.  They  can  partially,  but  not  wholly,  mislead  in 
respect  to  external  conduct.  Their  influences  not  so  effective  for 
evil  as  for  good.  —  §  97.  These  principles  explain  the  differences 
in  the  standards  of  morality.  — §  98.  Conditions  of  improvement 
in  ethical  standards.  (1)  Education.  Reformation  of  character 
and  life.  —  §  99.  Reformation  of  speculative  and  practical  morals. 
The  instrumentalities  are  rational.  The  effects  are  often  surpris- 
ing. They  are  also  permanent.  The  zeal  of  reformers  is  often 
excessive. 

CHAPTER  XV. 

The  Law  of  Honor 237 

§  100.  The  product  of  society.  The  term  social  in  its  import.  Sup- 
poses a  limited  and  special  community.  —  §101.  Rests  upon  an 
implied  contract.  The  law  more  or  less  definite,  though  unwritten. 
Example  of  lawyers.  Of  physicians,  merchants,  thieves,  and  gam- 
blers. Among  gentlemen.  —  §  102.  Does  not  respect  the  motives. 
Conditions  and  privileges.  Often  applied  to  the  feelings  and 
purposes.  —  §  103.  Its  defects.  Respects  a  part  of  man's  nature. 
Divides  and  distracts  the  being.  —  §  104.  Why  attractive  to  the 
moralist.    Is  energetic.    Is  more  or  less  artificial. 


CHAPTER  XVI. 

The  Conscience 243 

§  105.  The  subject  has  been  anticipated.  Often  used  for  the  entire 
moral  nature.  The  reason  why.  Why  improper.  Consciousness 
conspicuous  in  the  moral  functions.  —  §  106.  Conscience  limited  to 
the  intellect  and  sensibility.  When  employed  upon  a  special  sub- 
ject-matter. —  §  107.  Applied  to  their  products  also.  Individual 
and  public  conscience.  SwTjjprjCTt?,  ^vt'etfirjon?,  and  'ETriVpio-i?.  —  §  108. 
As  an  intellectual  power.  How  far  infallible  and  fallible.  Certain, 
doubtful,  and  vacillating. —  §  109.  Conscience  as  sensibility.  Emo- 
tional experiences  on  decision.  —  §  110.  Can  be  cultivated  and 
developed.  —  §  111.  Can  be  debased  and  darkened.  Cannot  be  de- 
stroyed. Reformed  under  disadvantages.  Its  independence  and 
supremacy. —  §  112.  Its  supreme  authority. —§  113.  Should  con- 
science always  be  obeyed?  Figuratively  characterized.  —  §  114. 
May  it  ever  be  disobeyed?  —  §  115.  The  perverted  and  dishonest 
conscience.  Methods  by  which  it  is  misled.  — §  110.  Possible  dis- 
crepancy between  the  real  and  fictitious  conscience.  —  §  117.  Is  it 
ever  best  not  to  reason,  and  when?  The  intuitive  tact  of  con- 
science. 


CONTENTS.  xvii 

CHAPTER   XVII. 

PAQB 

Cases  of  Conscience,  Casuistry,  Conflict   op  Duties,  and  Tol- 
eration   260 

§  118.  Cases  of  conscience  defined.  Casuistry  as  a  profession.  "When 
especially  needful.  —  §  119.  Moral  quality  properly  limited  to  the 
purposes.  —  §  120.  Certain  actions  never  admit  of  question.  —  §  121. 
"When  cases  of  conscience  become  serious. — §122.  Casuistry  is 
concerned  with  the  effects  of  actions.  Temper  in  which  such  ques- 
tions should  be  prosecuted.  —  §  123.  Tolerance  defined.  Limited  to 
what  questions.    Toleration,  in  its  special  meaning. 

CHAPTER   XVIII. 

The  Christian  Theory  of  Morals 266 

§  124.  Our  concern  with  this  theory  is  speculative  only.  From  a  nat- 
uralistic point  of  view.  It  is  no  less  ethical  because  religious.  Not 
scholastic,  but  popular. —§  125.  Moral  distinctions  pertain  to  the 
intentions.  —  §  126.  As  expressing  the  character.  —  §  127.  Mani- 
fested in  actions.  —  §  128.  Not  originated  by  the  divine  command. 
—  §  129.  Though  re-enforced  by  it.  —  §  130.  Appeal  to  love  of  happi- 
ness. Thoroughly  unselfish.  Ethical  and  personal  motives  capa- 
ble of  being  harmonized.  —  §  131.  Benevolence  comprehends  all 
duties  from  man  to  man.  — §  132.  This  benevolence  eminently  pure 
and  disinterested.  Its  quality  specially  unselfish.  The  cross.— 
§  133.  Duties  as  qualified  by  Christian  motives.  Christian  types 
of  benevolence.  Justice.  Estimate  of  the  value  of  the  individual 
man.  Obligations  to  justice  and  veracity.  Christian  sense  of  honor. 
Christian  estimate  of  sexual  purity.  —  §  134.  External  actions  of 
the  greatest  and  least  consequence.  Requisitions  uncompromising. 
The  right  and  duty  of  private  judgment.  Example.  Rules  which 
respect  the  purposes  uniform  and  exacting.  —  §  135.  Christian  eth- 
ics provides  for  progress.  Involves  progressive  enlightenment. 
The  only  system  that  provides  for  progress.  Christian  ethics  so- 
cial. Applies  to  all  human  relations  and  duties.  —  §  136.  Gives 
instruction  by  principles,  rather  than  by  rules.  Many  are  in  para- 
doxical phrase.  Liable  to  be  misconstrued.  Charged  with  being 
weak  and  effeminate.  With  overlooking  important  virtues.  Du- 
ties with  respect  to  property  and  civil  government  positively  incul- 
cated. Opposite  charges  urged  against  it.  Reasons  why  it  did  not 
discuss  political  duties  more  minutely.  Criticism  of  Mr.  J.  S.  Mill. 
-7  §  137.  Christian  ethics  called  impracticable.  —  §  138.  The  Chris- 
tian contrasted  with  every  other  ethics.  — §  139.  "Whence  did  it  ori- 
ginate? —  §  140.  Further  questions  concerning  this  system.  — §  141. 
(1)  Are  the  ethics  of  the  Old  and  New  Testaments  the  same  ?  How 
far  different?  —  §  142.  (2)  In  what  sense  is  there  progress  from  one 
to  the  other  ?  Every  living  system  must  be  progressive.  The  He- 
brew system  specially  progressive.  —  §  143.  (3)  Are  any  of  the  pre- 


xvm  CONTENTS. 


PAOB 

cepts  of  the  Old  Testament  immoral  ?  Theory  of  these  precepts.  — 
§  144.  Ethical  interpretation  of  acts  of  cruelty  and  war.  Examples 
and  practices  should  be  interpreted  by  the  historic  sense.  —  §  145. 
(4)  By  what  formulte  can  we  practically  apply  scriptural  precepts  ? 
—  §  146.  Questions  respecting  the  application  even  of  positive 
teachings. 


PART  n.  — THE  PRACTICE  OF  DUTY,  OR  ETHICS. 

CHAPTER  I. 

Introductoby  :  Classification  of  Duties 303 

§  147.  Previous  inquiries,  and  their  results.  Prepare  for  other  inves- 
tigations. —  §  148.  Ethics  respect  the  voluntary  purposes.  Special 
rules  of  duty  change  with  circumstances.  Induction  required  in 
every  ethical  code.  Induction  includes  tact.  —  §  149.  Materials 
objective  and  subjective.  Example.  — §  150.  Objection  to  using  the 
feelings.  Classification  of  duties.  — 151.  Duties  usually  defined  by 
the'ir  objects.  —  §  152.  Why  we  begin  with  duties  to  ourselves. 
Why,  and  in  what  sense,  all  duties  are  duties  to  God. 


CHAPTER  n. 

Duties  to  Ourselves.  —  Their  General  Principlb 312 

§  153.  Fundamental  principle.  Self-love  defined. — §  154.  The  objec- 
tive self  is  also  the  moral  self.  Duties  which  terminate  with  our- 
selves. Duties  to  ourselves  not  easily  defined. — §  155.  Good  of 
character  and  good  of  condition.  Good  of  character  always  su- 
preme. —  §  156.  Moral  importance  of  simple  emotions.  Stoic  and 
Christian  self-culture.  —  §  157.  Duties  which  respect  the  condition. 
For  the  present  and  the  future.  —  §  158.  Obligation  to  prudence. 
§  159.  Relations  to  the  habits  important.  How  designated.  —  §  160. 
Asceticism.  Christianity  not  ascetic.  —  §  161.  Objection  to  ascet- 
icism. 

CHAPTER  ni. 

Duties  -which  respect  the  Bodily  Appetites  and  the  Bodily  Life,  325 

§  162.  Appetites  characterized.  —  §  163.  Distinguished  from  other  sen- 
sibilities.—  §  164.  Compared  with  the  other  sensibilities. — §  165. 
How  related  to  the  future. —§  166.  Special  limitations  of  the  appe- 


CONTENTS.  XIX 


PAGE 

tites.  —  §  167.  Alleged  dignity  and  rights  of  the  appetites.  —  §  168. 
How  far  a  man  is  responsible  for  the  future.  —  §  169.  Social  aspects 
of  the  appetites.  —  §  170.  The  appetites  made  to  be  controlled. — 
§  171.  Natural  restraints  and  corrections.  Sexual  vice  and  seduc- 
tion.—§172.  Responsibility  for  others.  Special  duties  with  respect 
to  intoxicating  liquors.  —  §  173.  Duties  which  respect  the  health 
and  life.  —  §  174.  Tenacity  and  strength  of  the  desire  of  life.  —  §  175. 
Value  of  human  life  under  theism.  Criminality  of  suicide,  —  §  176. 
Imprudence  and  recklessness.  Preservation  of  life  not  a  supreme 
end.  Many  things  are  preferable  to  life.  —  §  177.  In  what  sense  the 
right  to  life  is  inalienable. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

Duties  to  Ourselves  which  kespect  the  Intellect 345 

§  178.  Natural  impulses  to  knowledge.  — §  179.  Activity  the  condi- 
tion of  growth.  Men  enforce  this  duty.  — 180.  Each  individual  has 
a  special  sphere  of  duty.  —  §  181.  The  community  holds  a  man  to 
his  profession.  —  §  182.  Intellectual  duties  respecting  ethical  truth. 


CHAPTER  V. 

Duties  to  Ourselves  which  relate  to  the  Feelings  and  the 
Habits 351 

§  183.  Subjective  effects  of  the  feelings.  —  §  184.  General  rule  in  re- 
spect to  the  emotions.  —  §  185.  Importance  of  the  emotions  that  are 
not  expressed.  Strength  of  inward  habits  of  feeling.  —  §  186.  Their 
relation  to  subsequent  acts.  Feelings  cultivated  by  their  objects. 
—  §  187.  Habits  of  certain  desires.  Gambling.  Gambling  in  busi- 
ness.—  §  188.  Speculation  defined.  Less  dangerous  than  gambling 
proper.  —  §  189.  Ventures  in  lotteries.  Raffling  at  fairs.  —  §  190. 
Habits  as  related  to  the  feelings.  — §  191.  Self-inspection,  when 
useful,  and  hurtful.  —  §  192.  Asceticism  of  the  feelings.  Sentiment- 
alists a  species  of  ascetics. 


CHAPTER  VI. 

Duties  of  Man  to  Himself,  which  respect  his  Wants,  his  Rights, 
AND  HIS  Moral  Claims 362 

§  193.  Every  man  has  individual  wants.  Men  naturally  supply  them, 
and  aid  one  another.  Meaning  of  wants.  This  supply  involves 
effort  and  skill.  —  §  194.  Supposes  property,  and  the  duty  of  acquir- 
ing it.  This  duty  called  in  question.  — §  195.  Certain  classes  of  men 
supposed  to  be  exempted  from  this  duty.  —  §  196.  Supposed  teach- 
ings of  the  New  Testament.  —  §  197.  The  right  to  property.    Rights 


XX  CONTENTS, 


PAGB 


in  general.  General  duty  to  assert  and  defend  our  rights.  — §  198. 
By  aid  of  the  government  if  practicable.  Doctrine  of  self-defence 
sometimes  pressed  to  an  extreme.  Suppose  the  government  fails 
in  its  duty.  —  §  199.  Self-defence  not  inconsistent  with  Christian 
ethics.  Non-resistance.  — §  200.  The  duty  of  self-respect. —  §  201. 
Founded  on  what  assumption. 


II. 

CHAPTER  Vn. 

Duties  to  our  Fellow-men  :  Their  Comprehensive  and  Funda- 
mental Principle 374 

§  202.  Duties  of  man  to  his  fellow,  founded  on  what  principle.  Di- 
vided into  two  classes.  Not  inconsistent  with  securing  our  own 
highest  good.  Includes  the  good  of  others.  —  §  203.  Benevolence 
required,  subjectively  and  objectively  conceived.  Men  alike  in  a 
capacity  for  good.  Also  for  disinterested  sympathy.  Opposing 
schools  of  opinion.  Man  disinterested  by  nature.  The  sensibili- 
ties differ  in  rank  and  value.  —  §  20i.  The  rule  of  love  involves  a 
variety  of  duties.  Who  is  our  neighbor  :  variety  of  relations. 
Why  should  we  prefer  our  neighbor?  The  rule  recognizes  a  differ- 
ence in  men.  —  §205.  Love  to  our  neighbor  as  to  ourselves.  — %2QQ. 
The  law  of  love  enforces  many  special  duties.  Reasons  for  hold- 
ing to  this  law.  (1)  Benevolence  a  conceivable  force.  (2)  The 
force  would  produce  perfection  of  character  and  condition.  (3) 
The  duty  is  recognized  in  the  Scriptures.  Confirmed  by  the  his- 
tory of  ethical  truth.  — §207.  Objections.  (1)  The  law  fails  to 
enforce  certain  duties.  Objection  from  the  duty  of  veracity. 
The  duty  of  justice.  True  benevolence  regards  man  as  moral.  (2) 
Requires  the  sacrifice  of  special  affections.  On  the  contrary,  it 
inspires  them.  — §  208.  These  objections  in  a  popular  form.  (1)  In- 
volves the  calculation  of  consequences.  Reply.  (2)  That  it  makes 
morality  shifting  and  uncertain.  (3)  It  is  the  doctrine  of  the  great- 
est happiness  of  the  greatest  number.  —  §  209.  Two  opposite  tend- 
encies are  now  struggling  for  the  mastery.  —  §  210.  Summary  of 
doctrine  of  moral  benevolence.  Supposes  a  common  nature  and 
sympathy.  Also  special  relationships.  —  §  211.  Foundation  of  spe- 
cial as  contrasted  with  general  duties.  —  §  212.  General  assumption 
in  respect  to  natural  harmony  of  the  two. 


CHAPTER  Vni. 

The  Doctrine  of  Rights 396 

§  213.  Recapitulation.    Man  finds  himself,  from  the  first,  in  society, 
/and  thou.  —  §  214.  Moral  claims,  how  related  to  duties.    Relation 


CONTENTS,  XXI 


of  duties  to  rights,  and  vice  versa.  —  §  215.  Relation  of  moral  claims 
to  duties.  Not  all  moral  claims  are  rights.  — 216.  Rights,  natural, 
universal,  and  inalienable.  Natural.  Universal.  Inalienable. — 
§  217.  Such  rights  may  not  always  be  asserted.  Over-statement 
of  the  doctrine  of  inalienable  rights.  —  §  218.  Rights  as  capable  of 
enforcement. 


CHAPTER  IX. 


406 


Different  Classes  of  Rights,  and  the  Duties  which  respect 
THEM 

(1)  Duties  respecting  the  right  to  life.  Defence  of  life.  —  §  219.  Right 
to  personal  liberty.  To  whom  should  liberty  be  secured?  — §  220. 
Right  to  property.  Desire  of  property  natural.  Impulses  to  gain 
it.  Special  interest  in  property.  —  §  221.  Property  largely  defined 
by  law  and  custom.  — §  222.  Natural  and  adventitious  rights. — 
§  223.  Nature  of  justice  as  a  duty  and  virtue.  Justinian's  defini- 
tion. Various  significations  of  justice.  Civil  justice.  Legal  jus- 
tice. Commutative,  remunerative,  and  punitive  justice.  Equity. 
Place  of  justice  among  the  cardinal  virtues. 

CHAPTER  X. 

Duties  of  Truth,  or  Veracitt 416 

§  224.  Prominence  of  veracity.  The  obligation  to  communicate,  and 
to  communicate  correctly.  —  §  225.  Veracity  enforced  by  the  law  of 
love.  Distinctly  recognized  at  an  early  period.  Sanctioned  by 
reflection  and  experience.  —  §226.  The  "keeping  one's  word."  — 
§227.  Other  grounds  than  benevolence  required  by  some.  The 
question  carefully  stated.  Natural  impulse  to  expect  and  to  utter 
the  truth.  —  §  228.  Is  there  an  obligation  to  speak  the  truth  for  "  the 
truth's  sake  "?  Not  always  wrong  to  convey  a  false  impression. — 
§  229.  Veracity  as  a  habit.  —  §  230.  Is  it  morally  right  ever  to  de- 
ceive? Story  told  in  Pliny's  letters.  Promises  extorted  by  threats. 
—  §  231.  Axe  promises  always  binding  ? 

CHAPTER  XI. 


Duties  op  Generajl  Beneficence 


§  232.  Duties  already  provided  for.  —  §  233.  Number  and  variety  of 
duties  as  yet  to  be  considered.  —  §234.  Theorists  who  deny  any 
positive  obligation  to  these  duties.  The  altruism  of  modern  schools. 
The  struggle  for  existence. — §235.  Sympathy  natural  and  neces- 
sary to  man.  Co-operative  action  more  necessary  in  modern  soci- 
ety. —  §  236.  Four  distinct  coses  of  need  of  help.  (1)  Indolent  want. 


xxii  CONTENTS. 


■PKGtJl 

§237.  (2)  Mutual  co-operation.  Co-operation  not  communism.  Ex- 
treme of  re-action.— §238.  (3)  Unavoidable  calamity.  The  impulse 
of  pity.  —  §  239.  Individual  effort.  —  §  240.  (4)  Ignorance  and  vice.  — 
§  241.  Obligation  to  prevent,  as  truly  as  to  recover  from,  ignorance 
and  vice.  —  §  242.  Permanent  occasion  for  individual  activity.  — 
§  243.  Necessity  for  social  movements  against  ignorance  and  vice. 
—  §  244.  Conditions  of  success:  (1)  The  evil  must  be  justly  judged. 
(2)  The  occasion  may  be  temporary.  (3)  No  man  should  be  held  be- 
yond his  personal  convictions.  (4)  Duty  to  abstain  from  the  appear- 
ance of  evil.   (5)  When  social  movements  are  strong  and  we^. 


CHAPTER  XII. 

Duties  to  Benefactors,  Friends,  and  Enemies  ;  or,  the  Special 
Personal  Affections 444 

§  245.  The  affections  and  relationships,  hovsr  characterized.  In  what 
sense  are  they  natural  and  moral.  —  §  24G.  Men  are  unlike  in  their 
nature.  —  §  247.  They  differ  in  sympathies  and  antipathies.  —  §  248. 
These  lead  to  voluntary  love  and  dislike.  —  §  249.  The  law  of  duty 
with  respect  to  both.  Rationalistic  and  sentimental  theories.  Nei- 
ther is  wholly  in  the  right.  No  absolute  general  rule  can  be  laid 
down.  —  §  250.  The  law  of  love  does  not  require  us  to  have  the 
same  feelings  towards  all.  We  cannot  like  each  of  our  neighbors 
equally.  —  §  251.  The  indulgence  of  special  affections  is  salutary. — 
§  252.  Love  strengthens  the  special  affections.  Special  rules  founded 
on  general  inductions.  —  §  253.  Duties  which  respect  the  sympa- 
thies. The  antipathies  should  be  regarded,  but  controlled.  —  §  254. 
Duties  of  gratitude  and  resentment.  —  §  255.  Difficulty  in  regulat- 
ing resentment.  The  natural  solution.  Butler's  distinction.  Re- 
sentment founded  on  a  natural  impulse.  —  §  256.  Resentment  not 
easily  regulated. —  §  257.  An  unforgiving  temper.  — §  258.  Friend- 
ship as  a  moral  duty.  Special  friendships  not  incompatible  with 
the  law  of  love.  Mistaken  views  of  the  Christian  teachings. — 
§  259.  Friendship  a  sacred  contract  Friendship  romantic  — §  260. 
Friendship  between  man  and  woman.  —  §  261.  Love.  —  §  262. 
Friendship  among  the  ancients. 


CHAPTER   Xin. 

Duties  to  Family  and  Kindred 464 

§  263.  Family  relations  common  to  all  men.  Impel  to  common  affec- 
tions and  duties.  These  affections  and  duties  intelligent  and  moral. 
—  §  264.  Grounds  of  these  duties.  (1)  Natural  to  good  men.  Selfish 
and  perverted  family  feeling. —  §  2(55.  (2)  Sanctioned  by  reason 
and  conscience.  Family  friendships  peculiar.  —  §  266.  (3)  Some  of 
them  subject  to  special  contracts.    The  doctrine  of  free  love  and 


CONTENTS.  xxiii 


PAGE 

elective  affinities.  Relation  of  sympathy  to  duty.  —  §  267.  The  fam- 
ily implies  authority  and  obedience. — §268.  Anticipates  and  sup- 
poses the  state.  Implies  reward  and  punishment.  —  §  269.  Important 
as  a  school  of  morals.  —  §270.  Special  duties:  the  betrothal.  Pri- 
mary conditions.  Secondary.  —  §  271.  May  the  promise  ever  be 
broken  ?  —  §  272.  Marriage,  its  nature.  Its  social  and  moral  impor- 
tance. The  covenant.  Its  permanent  obligation. — §273.  Divorce 
in  earlier  times.  The  law  of  Christ.  The  teaching  of  Paul.  Appli- 
cation to  modern  life.  —  §  274.  The  parental  relation:  natural  basis 
for.  The  earliest  and  constant  duty  of  the  parent.  Duty  to  edu- 
cate. To  provide  for  children.  To  cherish  affection  for  them.  Till 
the  end  of  their  lives.    Duties  of  children  to  honor  their  parents. 


CHAPTER  XrV. 

The  State  :  its  Nature,  Functions,  and  Authoritt 487 

§  275.  The  state  grows  from  the  family.  Authority  naturally  dis- 
cerned and  responded  to. — §  276.  Derives  its  authority  from  com- 
mon consent. — §277.  Different  views  of  its  functions.  —  §278.(1) 
Theory  limits  it  to  the  defence  of  three  natural  rights.  False,  be- 
cause impracticable.  Has  never  been  applied.  —  §  279.  (2)  Theory  : 
the  paternal  and  despotic  theory.  —  §  280.  (3)  The  intermediate  the- 
ory. Relation  of  the  state  to  general  and  moral  culture.  Not  easy 
to  formulate  a  theory.  The  state  cannot  avoid  educational  and 
ethical  influences.  Practically,  must  be  regulated  by  public  senti- 
ment.—§281.  "  What  constitutes  a  state  ?  "  Continuous  territory. 
Defence  of  the  soil.  —  §  282.  Must  be  supreme  in  its  own  domain. 
Apparent  exception  in  the  United  States.  The  state  may  defend 
its  territory  and  itself.  Lawfulness  of  aggressive  war.  War  not 
an  unmixed  evil.  —  §  283.  The  constitution  of  a  state. 


CHAPTER  XV. 

Law  and  its  Enforcement 502 

§  284.  Must  enforce  and  execute  its  laws.  Necessity  of  force.  The 
duty  and  right  of  punishment.  Non-resistants  and  doctrinaires.  — 
§  285.  Lowest  form  of  punishment.  The  next  highest.  The  effec- 
tiveness of  punishment.  —  §  286.  Moral  relations  of  punishment. 
The  state  must  consider  the  intentions.  Conclusion.  —  §  287.  Lim- 
its of  punishment.  It  may  be  capital  when  ?  Secondary  ends  of 
punishment.  Modern  theories  of  punishment.  —  §  288.  The  law- 
fulness and  propriety  of  pardon.  —  §  289.  Theory  which  adjusts  the 
difficulties. 


XXiv  CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER  XVI. 

PAGB 

Duties  to  the  State,  Civil  and  Political 512 

§  290.  Duties  of  the  citizen.  General  obligation  of  the  citizen.  Two 
classes  of  duties.  I.  Civil  duties.  —  §  291.  (1)  To  recognize  the  au- 
thority of  the  state.  Mistaken  and  fanatical  views.  —  §  292.  (2)  To 
cherish  special  patriotic  feelings,  —  §  293.  (3)  To  pay  taxes.  —  §  294. 
(4)  To  support  and  defend  the  government.  —  §  295.  (5)  To  obey 
every  law,  with  certain  exceptions,  (a)  Suppose  the  law  is  unwise. 
—  §  296.  (6)  Suppose  the  law  is  mischievous.  —  §  297.  (c)  Suppose  it 
requires  immoral  actions.  —  §  298.  (d)  Suppose  it  commands  disobe- 
dience to  God.  —  §  299.  (e)  Suppose  the  law  is  unconstitutional.  Two 
cases  supposed.  Obligation  in  both  cases  to  accept  the  penalty.  — 
§  300.  (/)  Suppose  the  administration  to  be  intolerable.  When  is  a 
revolution  justifiable  ?  Failure  does  not  imply  criminality.  —  §  301. 
(6)  Patriotism  a  positive  duty  and  virtue.  —  §  302.  II.  Political 
duties  of  the  citizen.  Enumerated  in  part.  Civil  and  political 
duties  often  confounded.  —  §  303.  The  state  necessarily  an  organ- 
ism. As  such,  supposes  personal  organs.  —  §  304.  The  state  more 
than  a  machine.  —  §  305.  Every  civil  oflSce  a  trust.  —  §  306.  The 
sense  of  official  responsibility  in  office-holder  and  voter.  —  §  307. 
The  ancient  and  modern  state. 


III. 
V  CHAPTER  XVn. 

Duties  to  Ajomals     . 629 

§  308.  Reasons  which  enforce  these  duties.  Animals  are  social.  Cap- 
able of  training.  Involve  and  enforce  a  moral  discipline.  Animals 
neither  personal  nor  moral.  Duty  of  training  animals. — §  309. 
The  place  of  animals  subordinate  to  that  of  man.  —  §  310.  (1)  Beasts 
and  birds  of  prey.  —  §  311.  (2)  Killing  animals  for  food.  Decisive 
argument.  — §  312.  (3)  The  use  of  animal  strength.  — §  313.  (4)  Use 
of  animals  for  sport.  —  §  314.  (5)  Use  of  animahs  in  physiology  and 
pathology. 

IV. 
CHAPTER  XVni. 

Duties  which  respect  the  Physical  "Wobld 639 

§  315.  These  duties  are  twofold.  (1)  To  discover  and  apply  the 
resources  of  nature.  Scientific  and  practical  knowledge  of  nature. 
Pleasures  from  nature  legitimate.  The  enlargement  and  develop- 
ment of  her  resources.  —  §  316.  (2)  Nature  manifests  God  to  the 
imagination  and  the  conscicuco. 


CONTENTS.  XXV 


CHAPTER  XIX. 

PAGE 

Duties  to  God 543 

§  317.  Grounds  of  these  duties.    These  truths  involve  certain  duties. 

—  §318.  Natural  religious  affections.  —  §  319.  First  supposition:  God 
as  absolute  and  self-existent.    Natural  worship  morally  obligatory. 

—  §320.  Second  supposition:  God  morally  perfect.  Third  supposi- 
tion :  That  God  is  also  a  moral  Ruler.  Two  objections  against 
moral  rule  in  God.  (1)  It  is  mercenary.  (2)  Objection  that  it  im- 
plies punishment. —  §321.  Conclusion:  Duty  of  every  man.  Influ- 
ence of  the  moral  recognition  of  God.  —  §  322.  Fourth  supposition: 
God  forgiving  and  redeeming.  —  §  323.  Sin  and  ill-desert  univer- 
sally recognized.  —  §  324.  Comprehensive  conclusion.  —  §  325.  Relar 
tions  of  morality  to  religion. 


CHAPTER  XX. 

Special  Religious  Duties 553 

§  326.  To  possess  a  religious  character  which  is  ethical.  This  should 
be  manifested  in  actions.  —  §  327.  Intellectual  duties,  or  duties 
of  faith.  —  §  328.  Duty  to  use  the  means  for  this  end.  Special 
obligations  in  the  revision  of  traditional  faith.  Possibility  and 
duty  of  toleration  and  charity.— §  329.  Duties  of  religious  feeling. 
Forms  of  religious  feeling.  Duty  of  the  same.  —  §  330.  Duties  of 
religious  activity. —§  331.  Duty  of  professing  our  faith.  — §  332. 
Duties  of  worship.  Worship  is  twofold.  Social  worship  and  the 
church.  Importance  of  worship.  — §  333.  Of  worship  as  prayer. 
Possibility  of  spiritual  influences.  Is  prayer  a  physical  force? 
Objection.  Possible  relation  of  God  to  the  forces  and  laws  of 
nature.  —  §  334.  Prayer  appropriate  to  every  condition  of  life.  Sub- 
mission essential  to  prayer. 


THE 


ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL  SCIENCE, 


INTRODUCTORY. 

§  1.  Moral  Science  is  the  science  of  duty;  i.e.,  the  science 
which  defines,  regulates,  and  enforces  duty.  This  Moral  Science 
definition  is  preliminary  and  inadequate,  as  every  defined.  Defi- 
definition  must  be  which  is  given  at  the  beginning  "onarand^*^" 
of  a  treatise.  A  satisfactory  and  adequate  defini-  imperfect* 
tion  of  any  science  can  only  be  attained  by  an  exhaustive 
discussion  of  the  subject-matter  of  which  it  treats.  For  this 
reason  it  should  be  looked  for  at  the  end,  rather  than  at  the 
beginning,  of  our  inquiries.  The  definition  with  which  we  begin 
is  seldom  that  which  a  more  extensive  knowledge  of  the  sub- 
ject requires  and  justifies.  "As  much,  therefore,  as  is  to  be 
expected  from  a  definition  placed  at  the  commencement  of  a 
subject,  is  that  it  should  define  the  scope  of  our  inquiries."  — 
J.  Stuart  Mill:  Logic,  Introductory,  §  1. 

Moral  Science,  or  the  Moral  Sciences,  are  not  infrequently 
used  in  a  wider  sense  as  synonymous  with  psychi-  Popular  use 
cal  or  speculative  science  or  sciences,  for  the  reason  ®^  *^®  *®'™* 
that  these  are  referred  to  or  assumed  in  Moral  Science  proper 
as  furnishing  the  facts,  principles,  or  methods,  one  or  all,  on 
which  Moral   Science   rests,   or  which  it  presupposes.     This 

1 


2  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL   SCIENCE.  [§  1. 

broader  and  more  general  use  of  the  term  is,  however,  not 
likely  to  mislead  any  except  superficial  thinkers. 

As  a  science,  Moral  Science  proposes  to  give  the  results  of 
careful  observations,  subtile  and  exhaustive  analyses,  clear  and 
complete  definitions,  verified  inductions,  logical  deductions,  in 
the  form  of  a  consistent,  articulated,  and  finished  system. 

The  scientific  knowledge  of  duty  at  which  we  aim,  also  sup- 
poses that  there  is  a  so-called  popular  knowledge 
supposes  a       which  is  already  possessed  and    made  secure  (cf. 

popular  27ie  Human  Intellect,  §435).     Duty  is  a  subject- 

knowledge.  /J 

matter  which  all  men  acknowledge  and  believe  in, 

and  of  which  all  men  think  more  or  less.  All  men  adopt 
principles  of  duty  which  are  more  or  less  correct  and  compre- 
hensive. All  men  accept  rules  of  duty  for  themselves  and 
others  which  are  more  or  less  satisfying  and  sacred.  The 
transition  from  common  to  scientific  knowledge  may  be  less 
abrupt  in  this  than  in  many  other  cases ;  but  it  does  not  follow, 
for  this  reason,  that  it  is  less  desirable  to  effect  it.  It  may  be 
even  more  important,  because  of  the  greater  liability  of  men  to 
careless  thinking  and  investigation  in  the  treatment  of  themes 
with  which  they  imagine  themselves  to  be  familiar. 

Every  science  is  also  capable  of  being  applied  as  an  art  to 
,    some  kind   of   activity  for  which  it  furnishes  the 

Also  a  practl-  "^ 

cai  appiica-  rules.  This  is  conspicuously  true  of  logic  and 
**""•  aesthetics,  which,  by  means  of   scientific  analyses, 

devise  and  justify  practical  rules  for  the  direction  of  our  think- 
ing and  reasoning,  and  the  exercise  and  improvement  of  our 
sense  of  the  beautiful  and  sublime.  In  a  certain  sense,  both 
logic  and  aesthetics  present  rules  for  riglit  conduct ;  but  this 
is  pre-eminently  true  of  Moral  Science,  inasmuch  as  it  assumes 
the  control  of  every  description  of  human  activity,  so  far  as  it 
can  be  modified  by  the  human  will  under  the  influence  of  the 
highest  motives.  The  results  of  its  scientific  knowledge  can 
be  applied  to  the  direction  of  human  conduct  and  the  improve- 
ment of  human  character,  to  the  well-being  of  the  individual 


§2.]  INTRODUCTORY.  3 

and  the  community,  in  almost  every  conceivable  variety  of 
circumstances.  Moral  Science,  as  a  system  of  well-grounded 
rules  of  human  character  and  conduct,  is  justly  esteemed  one 
of  the  most  important  of  studies,  for  the  simple  reason  that 
questions  of  duty  present  themselves  to  all  men,  in  all  circum- 
stances ;  and  the  consequences  of  correctly  answering  these 
questions  are  of  the  utmost  practical  importance. 

§  2.    Duty   is   the   subject-matter   of   Moral   Science.     But 
what  is  duty?    We  reply  in  general,  and  provision-  ^,  . . 
ally.  Duty  in  the  concrete  is  an  action,  or  collection 
of  actions,  which  ought  to  be  done :  in  the  abstract,  it  is  tlie 
quality  or  relation  which  is  common  to  and  distinguishes  such 
actions. 

We  do  not  undertake  at  present  to  enumerate  or  designate 
these  actions.  We  give  no  definition  or  theory  of  the  quality 
which  belongs  to  them.  We  do  not  assert  that  this  is  the  only 
relation  or  property  which  belongs  to  the  acts  in  question : 
we  simply  recognize  it  as  the  one  quality,  among  others,  which 
is  designated  by  the  term  "duty"  in  every  action  which  is 
owed  or  due,  and  which  may  be  claimed  or  enforced. 

The  term  "action,"  as  used  in  the  foregoing  definition,  is 
obviously  not  limited  to  corporeal  or  external  actions,   ^  ^^^  ^^ 
as  a  word  or  blow,  or  even  a  gesture  or  look,  nor  which  action 

Is  used 

indeed  to  any  bodily  movement  or  effect  whatever, 
independently  of  the  intentions ;  but  it  also  includes  the  inner 
activities,  as  a  wish,  or  desire,  or  purpose,  whether  these  are, 
or  are  not,  made  manifest  by  word  or  deed. 

Nor  is  the  term,  when  thus  applied,  limited  to  single  and 
transient  states.     It  may  also  be  applied  to  those  i^jjin^gg  tjie 
continued  or  permanently  active  conditions  of  the  character 
man  which  we  call  his  character^  his  disposition^  and 
habits,  so  far  as  these  admit  the  relation  of  moral  obligation 
or  moral  quality.     In  Moral  Science  psychical   activities  and 
states  are  esteemed  of  no  less  consequence  than  any  other,  if, 
indeed,  they  do  not  constitute  its  proper  sphere. 


4  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL   SCIENCE.  [§  3. 

Moral  Science  treats  of  actions  as  they  ought  to  be,  not  of 
Moral  Science  Phenomena  or  acts  as  they  are:  it  is  therefore  a 
Is  a  science  of  science  of  the  ideal  as  truly  as  of  the  actual.  It  is 
truly  as  of  ^^^^'>  ^*  founds  its  conclusions,  in  respect  to  what 
the  actual.  ought  to  be,  upon  its  discoveries  of  what  actually  is. 
It  founds  its  ideal  rules,  and  proposes  its  ideal  aims,  upon  a 
solid  basis  of  fact.  It  is  not  in  the  least  romantic,  but  severe 
and  critical.  It  inquires  what  a  moral  agent  is,  in  his  constitu- 
tion, in  order  to  determine  how  he  ought  to  choose  and  feel  and 
act ;  but  the  conclusions  which  it  derives  from  these  observa- 
tions of  fact  are  conclusions  respecting  what  ought  to  be,  not 
what  actually  occurs.  Hence,  though  ideal  in  its  aims  and 
rules,  it  is  founded  on  fact  and  observation.  It  investigates  the 
moral  constitution  of  man,  and,  so  far,  is  an  inductive  science. 
Like  other  inductive  sciences,  it  interprets  man's  capacities  in 
the  light  of  those  intuitions  which  are  essential  to  scientific 
knowledge,  finding  in  facts  and  intuitions  its  principles  and 
rules.  Within  this  sphere  it  is  strictly  arid  severely  an  inductive 
science.  So  far  as  it  derives  conclusions  from  these  presumed 
data  as  to  what  man  ought  to  be  and  to  do,  so  far  it  is  an  ideal, 
a  pure  or  hypothetical  science,  and  is  akin  to  formal  logic  and 
the  pm-e  mathematics.  So  far,  however,  as  it  adjusts  its  rules 
of  external  conduct  to  the  lessons  of  experience,  so  far  is  it 
aflSliated  with  the  applied  mathematics  in  accommodating  its 
ideal  rules  to  the  modifying  influence  of  other  forces  and  laws. 

§  3.  Should  it  be  asked  on  what  grounds  we  assume  that 

d    f  r  ^"^y  ^®  ^  reality,  or  that  the  conception  of  moral 

believing        obligation  is  not  a  fiction,  we  reply,  — 

reanty%rat       W  I^uty  is  Universally  believed  to  be  a  reality. 

least  worthy    xhc  presence  of  this  relation  .to  all  men,  and  their 

our  study.  .  ,       .         .  -  , 

assent  to  its  authority  in  some  form,  are  rarely 
denied.  All  men  acknowledge,  with  rare  exceptions,  that 
they  owe  certain  duties  to  certain  of  their  fellow-men.  All 
men  insist,  without  an  exception,  that  their  fellow-men  owe 
some  duties  to  themselves. 


§  4.]  INTBOBUCTOEY.  5 

(2)  The  conception  of  duty  is  not  only  universally  and 
tenaciously  held,  but  it  is  esteemed  of  the  highest  rank  and 
supreme  importance.  It  arouses  the  strongest  feelings  of  our 
nature,  and  exacts  the  most  costly  sacrifices.  It  awakens  the 
most  moving  hopes  and  fears.  It  has  played  the  most  con- 
spicuous rdle  in  human  history.  Literature  and  art  acknowl- 
edge its  presence  and  agency  as  one  of  the  noblest  elements 
of  their  attractiveness  and  their  power.  Moral  grandeur  and 
moral  beauty  are  confessed  to  be  the  most  elevating  and  attrac- 
tive forms  of  grandeur  and  beauty.  For  all  these  reasons,  it 
deserves  to  be  carefully  examined,  to  be  exactly  defined,  and 
thoroughly  grounded  and  verified. 

(3)  ^ven  if  the  conception  of  duty  is  supposed  to  be  un- 
real, while  yet  it  is  so  universally  received  and  confided  in,  it 
is  the  more  important  that  it  should  be  carefully  scrutinized,  in 
order  that  its  groundlessness  may  be  satisfactorily  exposed,  and 
the  speculative  and  practical  errors  which  have  been  caused  by 
faith  in  its  truth  and  sacredness  may  be  effectually  dispelled 
and  shunned. 

§  4.  We  assume  that  duty  is  a  reality,  and  is  worthy  of  scien- 
tific examination.  Following  the  analytic  method^ 
we  find  that  the  following  inquiries  and  methods  of  method  gives 
investigation  naturally  suojorest  themselves  to  our  ***®  divisions 
thoughts,  giving  the  several  forms  or  subdivisions  Science,  (i) 
of  Moral  Science.  ^r/ 

(1)  A  single  act  is  to  be  performed  or  avoided ;  ruiesofprac- 
as,  for  example,  with  respect  to  a  parent,  a  friend, 
or  a  benefactor.  We  are  taught,  or  we  believe,  that  we  ought 
to  do  or  avoid  such  an  act  because  it  is,  or  is  not,  one  of  the 
duties  which  we  owe  to  a  parent,  a  friend,  or  a  benefactor,  or, 
it  may  be,  to  our  country  or  a  suffering  fellow-man.  Such 
instruction  or  enforcement  assumes  that  it  is  conceded  that  we 
ought  to  perform  certain  duties  to  these  several  classes  of  per- 
sons, and  that  these  duties  maj^  be  defined  or  determined.  But 
we  may  never  have  inquired  why  these  classes  of  duties  are 


6  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL   SCIENCE.  [§  4. 

morally  binding.  We  may  have  simply  been  taught,  by  those  in 
whose  wisdom  we  confide,  that  all  these  classes  of  duties  are 
obligatory,  and  yet  have  never  reflected  on  the  facts  or  reasons 
by  which  they  are  enforced.  The  propositions  given  in  answer 
seem  to  require  no  proof,  they  seem  to  be  self-evident  per- 
haps, or  they  have  been  accepted  from  childhood  as  true  and 
binding.  We  may  assent  to  them  on  the  authority  of  persons 
older  and  wiser  than  ourselves,  or  as  the  commands  of  the 
Supreme.  It  is  enough  that  we  accept  the  truth  that  we  owe 
certain  duties  to  parents,  benefactors,  or  friends,  or  to  God, 
and  that  the  act  in  question  comes  under  the  rule. 

The  arrangement  of  duties  after  such  a  method,  upon  a  basis 
of  simple  authority,  is  the  first  step  towards  their  scientific 
classification  and  enforcement.  Such  an  arrangement  may 
properly  enough  be  called  "  the  Ethical,"  and  its  product 
"Ethics." 

The  term  "Ethics"  is  often  used  as  a  synonym  of  Moral 
Science.  As  its  etymology  indicates,  it  was  originally  applied 
to  manners.  The  epithet  "Moral"  is  similarly  derived,  in- 
deed; but  the  phrases  "Moral  Science,"  "Moral  Philosophy," 
have  acquired  a  somewhat  profounder  signification.  It  is  also 
true  that  Ethics  is  sometimes,  in  good  English  usage,  distin- 
guished as  theoretical  and  practical ;  but  this  usage  is  not  fre- 
quent. The  term  "Ethics"  more  commonly  suggests  what 
may  be  called  arranged  or  classified  rules  of  conduct  or  be- 
havior, as  given  for  practical  convenience,  exclusive  of  any 
reference  to  fundamental  principles  or  scientific  grounds. 

Under  Ethics  Casuistry  appears  as  a  special  branch  of  the 
Ethic  In.  science  of  conduct:  i.e.,  as  a  system  of  rules  for 
eludes  Casn-  the  decision  of  what  are  called  cases  of  conscience, 
*  '^*  under  what  is  called  a  conflict  of  duties,  or  a  case 

of  perplexity  or  doubt  in  which  it  is  not  clear  what  our  duty 
is ;  more  frequently  under  an  apparent  incompatibility  be- 
tween duties  of  one  class  and  duties  of  another,  as  between 
duties  to  family  relatives  and  benefactors,  or  duties  to  our- 


§4.]  INTRODUCTOBT.  7 

selves  and  duties  to  our  fellow-men,  or  duties  to  our  country 
and  duties  to  God. 

(2)  The  scientific  thinker  is  not  likely  to  be  content  with 
the  ethical  classification  or  explanation  of  duties.    ,^^  ^     , 

^  (2)  Moral 

He  rises  to  more  comprehensive,  or  penetrates  to  Science 
more  profound,  inquiries;  e.g..  Why  do  we  owe  p^^p®*"* 
the  duties  specified,  or  any  duties,  to  parents,  friends,  or  bene- 
factors? What  characteristic  is  there,  which  is  common  to 
these  classes  of  actions,  which  makes  them  sacred  and  obliga- 
tory ?  How  is  this  common  characteristic  defined  and  enforced  ? 
What  are  the  fundamental  principles  in  respect  to  human  action 
from  which  all  special  and  subordinate  rules  are  derived  ? 
Inquiries  like  these  introduce  us  to  Moral  Scieiice  proper,  or  the 
scientific  treatment  of  duty. 

Moral  Science  again  admits  a  twofold  division,  —  into  the 
psycJiological  and  the  philosophical.  The  one  distinguishes  and 
defines  the  psychical  capacities  which  are  the  foundation  of 
moral  activity  and  the  moral  relations :  the  other  defines  and 
arranges  the  conceptions,  and  justifies  and  adjusts  the  prin- 
ciples, which  are  required  for  the  conclusions  and  laws  of 
Moral  Science. 

Of  these,  the  psychological  method  is  first  in  time.     That  a 

knowledo;e  of  psychical  phenomena  and  of  the  spir- 

^  ^    J  ^  i  Involves 

itual  nature  of   man  is   essential   to   the   scientific  psychology 

knowledsje   of  duty,  is   obvious.     Moral  activities  o't*»e  moral 

^  *^  powers, 

can  be  performed  and  moral  responsibilities  acknowl- 
edged only  by  moral  persons.  Not  actions  of  every  descrip- 
tion are  judged  to  be  moral,  but  those  only  which  are  wrought 
by  a  person  who  by  his  constitution  is  competent  to  perform 
them,  and  whose  circumstances  qualify  him  to  originate  them. 
But  who  is  a  moral  person  ?  What  are  the  endowments  which 
are  essential  to  moral  activity,  and  what  are  the  circumstances 
which  are  the  conditions  of  moral  responsibility?  To  ascertain 
these  facts  of  human  nature,  to  distinguish  them  carefully,  to 
trace  their  history  and  origination,  to  show  their  mutual  rela- 


8  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL   SCIENCE.  [§  4. 

tions  and  their  place  in  what  we  may  call  the  moral  experi- 
ences of  man,  are  the  necessary  prerequisites  to  Moral  Science. 
Such  an  observation  of  phenomena  or  facts  is  the  essential 
chronological  condition  to  any  scientific  knowledge  of  moral- 
ity. It  is  equally  indispensable  to  the  intelligent  application 
of  the  principles  and  rules  of  science  to  the  needs  of  individ- 
uals and  communities,  on  the  one  hand ;  and,  on  the  other,  to 
the  definition  and  justification  of  the  general  rules  of  practice. 
In  point  of  fact,  the  analysis  of  the  moral  faculties  or  endow- 
ments of  man  has  uniformly  been  acknowledged  to  be  an 
essential  element  or  condition  of  Moral  Science.  The  discus- 
sions in  this  science  are  very  largely  discussions  of  the  actual 
operations  of  the  human  soul,  when  required  to  settle  moral 
questions,  or  occupied  with  the  feelings  ^-nd  purposes  which 
attend  the  performance  or  the  violation  of  duty. 

(3)  Prominent  among  these  psychological  inquiries  are  those 
.-X  ,  ,  which  relate  to  the  nature  and  the  theory  of  con- 
a  theory  of  science;  e.g.,  What  is  its  relation  to  the  other  en- 
consc  ence.  dowmcnts  of  man  ?  Is  it  a  faculty  by  itself,  or  only 
the  universally  recognized  human  personality  when  applied  in 
a  special  form  and  to  a  special  subject-matter?  Whence,  and 
what,  and  how  extensive,  is  its  authority  ?  Can  it  be  educated  ? 
Can  it  be  improved  ?  Can  it  be  destroyed  ?  What  place  does  it 
hold  in  respect  to  custom,  tradition,  to  prevailing  opinion,  to  civil 
legislation,  or  to  a  supposed  or  actual  supernatural  revelation? 
These,  and  other  questions  in  respect  to  the  conscience,  are 
chiefly  questions  of  fact,  and,  as  such,  questions  of  psychology. 

(4)  But  Moral  Science  does  not  rest  on  psychology  alone  :  it 

a]|0  supposes  and  becomes  a  philosophy.  To  science 
ogy  carries"  ^^  ^^J  kind,  certain  axioms  or  fundamental  prin- 
nstoaphii-     ciplcs  are  necessary  prerequisites.     Whether  these 

principles  are  original  and  self-evident,  or  whether 
they  are  derived  from  experience,  reasoning,  or  association, 
they  must  be  assumed  and  asserted  in  order  to  any  scientific 
deduction  or  enforcement.    This  is  especially  true  of  any  scien- 


§5.]  INTRODUCTORY.  9 

tific  knowledge  of  man,  and  pre-eminently  of  his  moral  consti- 
tution, for  the  reason  that  any  thorough  or  critical  study  of  the 
moral  processes  and  moral  judgments  carries  us  back  to  those 
conceptions  and  truths  which  are  fundamental  to  all  knowledge, 
and  pre-eminently  to  all  philosophy.  It  forces  us  to  inquire 
whether  the  so-called  moral  axioms  and  intuitions  stand  by 
themselves,  as  an  independent  group,  co-ordinate  with  those 
of  the  pure  intellect,  or  whether  they  are  resolved  into  those 
intuitions  which  are  common  to  all  the  scientific  judgments,  and 
are  fundamental  to  every  form  of  science. 

The  relation  of  Moral  Science  to  psychology  and  philosophy 
has  always  been  most  intimate.  The  history  of  every  period 
of  human  activity  attests  the  fact  that  the  psychology  and 
metaphysics  of  individuals  and  generations  of  men  have,  in 
fact,  modified  and  determined  their  views  of  Moral  Science. 
The  Ethics  have  followed  the  philosophy  and  psychology  by  a 
natural  and  necessary  consequence,  more  or  less  rapidly  at 
different  times,  but  invariably  with  a  logical  and  inevitable 
sequence.  A  materialistic  or  atheistic  or  agnostic  philosophy 
must  inevitably  result  in  a  superficial  or  inconsistent  ethical 
system,  and  either  weaken  or  mislead  the  sensibilities  and  judg- 
ments of  duty  in  respect  to  the  Family,  the  State,  and  the 
Kingdom  of  God. 

§  5.  Reversing  the  order  of  our  inquiries^  we  give  the  results 
of  our  analysis  in  the  following  synthetic  statement  of  the 
principal  divisions  of  Moral  Science. 

(1)  We  begin  with  Moral  Science  proper,  or  a  scientific  treat- 
ment of  the  unquestioned  facts,  and  the  fundamen-  ^ 

^  Synthetic 

tal  conceptions  and  principles,  which  are  involved i!i  method 

the  moral  relations  and  phenomena.     Such  a  treat-  ^^J"^ ®^^J® 

ment  necessarily  involves  a  correct  Metaphysical  or  gives  us    (i) 

Speculative   theory   of    those   relations   which    are  pr^o^er,"*"*'* 

essential  to  every  form  of  science,  including  those  including 

psychology. 
relations  which  man  and  the  universe  hold  to  the 

Self-existent  and  the  Infinite. 


10  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL   SCIENCE.  [§  5. 

Such  a  science  also  presupposes  and  requires  a  correct  and 
comprehensive  Psychology  of  those  powers  of  man  which  are 
concerned  in  his  moral  activities  and  experiences.  It  also,  by  a 
necessary  corollary,  gives  us  a  correct  theory  of  the  Conscience, 
with  the  appropriate  practical  directions  in  respect  to  its  educa- 
tion, authority,  and  guidance. 

(2)  Moral  Science  naturally  and  necessarily  becomes  Ethics 
(2)  Proceeds  SO  soon  as  from  these  principles  and  facts  it  derives 
to  Ethics.  those  special  and  secondary  principles  and  axioms 
of  duty,  which,  when  applied,  become  the  rules  or  directions 
which  are  required  for  the  regulation  of  human  conduct.  A 
system  of  rules  of  human  conduct,  when  founded  on  well- 
grounded  reasons,  gives  us  Ethics,  which  prominently  recog- 
nizes the  leading  relations  of  man  as  an  individual  and  social 
being,  as  permanently  connected  by  fixed  conditions  with  nature 
and  with  God,  and  as  consequently  capable  of  culture,  science, 
and  religion. 

(3)  Ethics  implies  a  science  of  human  Rights,  so  far  as  duties 

to  be  performed  require  certain  permanent  and  well- 

(8)  Includes  ^  .  . 

and  dereiops    sccurcd  Conditions  of  human  activity  and  progress  ; 
*f*f°h*'*"*     which  man  is  not  only  permitted,  but  morally  re- 
quired under  certain  limitations,  to  assert,  and  se- 
cure to  himself. 

(4)  Inasmuch  as  duties  seem  often  to  conflict,  and  to  assert 

incompatible  claims.  Casuistry  arises,  or  the  science 

(4)  Casuistry.       ^         ^^.     ,  ^      .  ,  .   ,     „        .   ,  ,  .      .    , 

of  conflicting  duties,  which  furnishes  the  principles 
and  rules  by  which  these  apparent  conflicts  may  be  adjusted. 

(5)  Inasmuch,  also,  as  the  duties  of  men  are  illustrated  by 
(6)  RecoR-  *^®  examples,  and  enforced  by  the  motives,  or  in- 
nizes  Chris-     culcated  in  the  precepts,  of  Christianity,  we  have 

tian  Ethics.       ^,     ...         _,^,  . 

Christian  Ethics, 

These  topics  comprehend  the  several  divisions  into  which 

Moral  Science  may  be  developed,  and  under  which  it  may  be 

separately   treated,    according    to   the    individual    tastes    and 

method  of  the  writer.     It  is  sufficient  for  our  design  to  divide 


§6.]  INTRODUCTORY,  11 

our  treatise  into  Moral  Science  as  a  theory,  and  as  a  guide  for 
conduct,  or,  briefly,  into  Moral  Science  and  Etliics. 

§  6.  The  importance  and  \dignity  of  this  study  will  appear 
from  the  following  considerations  :  — 

(1)  Duty  is  a  legitimate  and  worthy  object  of  scientific  in- 
quiry.    Truths   of   duty   constantly  present   them-  -,,^    -  ^  . 
selves  for  man's  assent  and  faith.      The  precepts  portant.   (i) 
of  duty  perpetually  require  his  obedience  or  sacri-  matter  iegiti- 
fice.     Motives  of  duty  never  cease  to  inspire  his  mate. 

love  and  devotion.    Questions  of  duty  every  day  task  his  under- 
standing, or  distract  his  conscience. 

Duty,  moreover,  is  esteemed  by  most  men  to  be  of  the  high- 
est consequence.  It  excites  the  warmest  emotions  of  hope  or 
fear,  of  love  or  hate,  of  self-complacence  or  remorse.  It  exacts 
the  most  costly  sacrifices  of  wealth,  of  the  good  opinion  of 
others,  and  of  life  itself.  So  far  as  duty  is  capable  of  scientific 
analysis  and  justification,  in  order  that  our  doubts  may  be 
resolved,  our  inquiries  answered,  our  zeal  rekindled,  or  our 
actions  guided,  it  deserves  to  be  investigated  with  a  thorough 
and  patient  scientific  spirit. 

(2)  The  science  of  duty  is  necessary  as  a  preparation  for 
professional  and  public   life.      The  principles  and 

rules  of  duty  are  fertile  and  never-failing  themes  daily  for  pro- 
for  discussion  by  educated  men.     They  will  never  Sessional  and 

public  men. 

cease  to  be  enforced  upon  the  attention  of  men  in 
public  life  by  their  fellows  and  by  public  men  upon  their  gen- 
eration. Every  man  whom  we  shall  meet  in  life  will  have  some 
claim  to  urge  or  some  demand  to  assert.  Every  social  organ- 
ization, from  the  family  of  the  household  to  the  great  family 
of  mankind,  asserts  rights  which  can  only  be  responded  to  by 
some  duty  acknowledged  or  disowned.  Every  community  and 
association  has  its  code  of  duty,  and  its  tribunal  at  which  its 
laws  are  enforced,  its  rewards  are  allotted,  or  its  penalties  are 
exacted.  Every  form  of  civil  government  supposes  manifold 
duties  to  be  owed  and  confessed  by  its  citizens.     Even  those 


12  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL   SCIENCE.  [§6. 

movements  which  seem  to  be  anti-social,  and  destructive  of 
social  order,  are  aroused  by  appeals  to  some  sense  of  duty  or 
some  claim  of  right.  They  more  commonly  profess  to  be  pre- 
eminently ethical  in  their  reasonings  and  appeals.  Combina- 
tions, strikes,  seditions,  and  revolutions  are  usually  aroused  by 
some  real  or  imagined  violation  of  rights.  They  are  kindled 
by  some  professed  call  of  duty,  or  are  justified  by  some  actual 
or  fancied  wrong.  Judicial  tribunals  of  every  grade  are  con- 
stantly trying  questions  which  concern  the  rights  and  the  conse- 
quent duties  of  men.  The  argument  of  every  lawyer,  the  charge 
of  every  judge,  the  verdict  of  every  jury,  the  sentence  of  every 
culprit,  supposes  some  principle  in  Moral  Science  either  asserted 
or  derived,  some  rule  of  Ethics  that  is  obeyed  or  dishonored, 
some  sensibility  to  right  or  wrong  that  is  followed  or  offended, 
some  obligation  that  is  acknowledged  or  violated. 

Every  educated  man  who  assumes  the  function  of  teaching 
Every  edu-  ^^  leading  his  fellow-men  finds  that  one  of  his 
cated  man       principal  functions  is  to  discuss  and  enforce  propo- 

mnstdiscnsg        .^.  -      -,    .  ^i  ...  i  ,.   .   . 

questions  of  sitions  of  duty.  Clergymen,  jurists,  publicists, 
duty.  political  leaders,  teachers,  writers,  and  journalists 

are,  by  the  nature  of  their  oflSce,  expounders  of  Moral  Science. 
It  is  true,  they  may  seem  to  themselves  and  to  others  to  have  no 
faith  in  duty.  They  may  think  themselves  successful  in  their 
doubts  and  denials  in  respect  to  its  reality ;  but  such  denials 
and  questionings  only  respect  certain  of  its  forms  and  relations. 
They  may  reduce  duty  to  very  narrow  limits,  and  derive  it 
from  a  very  ignoble  origin,  and  enforce  it  by  very  unworthy 
motives  ;  but  no  man  in  public  life,  no  teacher  or  leader  of  men, 
would  ever  think  of  denying  every  form  of  duty,  or  cease  to  use 
the  nomenclature  of  Ethics.  For  these  reasons  a  scientific  knowl- 
edge of  the  foundations  and  precepts  of  duty  would  seem  to  be  a 
necessary  prerequisite  for  the  discharge  of  the  special  functions 
of  most  of  the  leaders  of  society,  and  masters  of  the  opinions  of 
their  fellow-men.  Every  such  person  holds  and  expounds  a 
true  or  a  false,  a  profound  or  superficial,  theory  of  morals. 


§6.]  INTBOBUCTOBT.  13 

(3)  The  study  of  Moral  Science  is  practically  useful.  Its 
natural  and  almost  necessary  tendency  is  to  lead 

•^  -^  (3)  The  study 

men  to  think  of  duty,  and  consequently  to  believe  leads  to  faith 
in  duty.  If  duty  is  the  solid  and  sacred  thing  *"  ^"*^* 
which  it  claims  to  be,  then  it  will  bear  the  closest  scrutiny. 
Not  onl}^  will  it  endure  this,  but  the  more  thoroughly  it  is  ex- 
amined, the  more  solid  will  be  its  grounds,  and  the  more  binding 
its  claims.  It  is  true,  speculative  studies  have  their  exposures. 
Science  may  be  pursued  in  a  narrow  or  a  dishonest  spirit,  and 
seem  to  lead  to  superficial  and  dangerous  conclusions ;  but  the 
legitimate  ends  and  efforts  of  science  are  truth,  made  more  evi- 
dent to  the  inquirer  in  proportion  to  the  fidelity  of  his  researches 
and  the  breadth  of  his  views.  The  worst  of  all  possible  scep- 
ticisms in  the  thinking  man  is  the  distrust  of  thorough  and  bold 
investigation.  The  most  dangerous  enemy  of  duty  is  the  man 
who  dissuades  from  an  exhaustive  examination  of  its  grounds 
and  claims  in  the  light  of  scientific  insight  and  with  the  widest 
possible  range  of  inquiry.  No  man  is  so  faithless  to  duty  in 
fact,  whatever  his  intentions  may  be,  as  he  who  loses  faith  in 
its  capacity  to  meet  and  endure  the  severest  scrutiny  of  scien- 
tific thought. 

Moreover,  the  scientific  study  of  duty  must  keep  pace  with 
the  attention  given  to  the  scientific  investigation  of  other  forms 
of  truth.  A  man  who  has  been  trained  to  scientific  habits  in 
any  department  of  thought,  or  upon  whatever  subject-matter, 
will  of  course  apply  these  habits  in  all  his  thinking.  He  will 
require  that  every  conclusion  which  he  accepts  shall  have  been 
viewed  in  its  scientific  relations  —  more  or  less  profoundly. 
He  must  justify  to  his  reflective  and  matured  reason  every  truth 
and  fact  which  is  liable  to  be  called  in  question.  There  may 
be  facts  and  principles,  indeed,  which  he  does  not  need  thus  to 
examine  and  justify  ;  but  this  is  not  true  of  the  facts  and  rules 
of  duty.  These  he  must  either  receive  or  deny,  he  must  either 
apply  or  neglect  them,  and  he  must  do  both  intelligently.  These 
truths  must  also  take  their  place  before   his   intellect,  by  the 


14  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL   SCIENCE.  [§6. 

side  of  those  other  facts  and  truths  which  his  scientific  thinking 
has  accepted.  If  he  fails  thus  to  connect  them  with  his  highest 
and  most  careful  thinking,  he  cannot  give  them  the  assent  of 
his  highest  and  best  intelligence,  nor  the  homage  of  his  most 
enlightened  confidence.  He  may  retain  his  faith  in  duty  and 
in  conscience,  but  his  faith  will  by  no  means  be  so  clear  and 
satisfactory  as  had  it  been  justified  to  and  by  his  best  intel- 
lectual activities.  His  zeal  and  fervor  for  the  right  will  lack 
nerve  and  confidence,  and  may  collapse  from  intellectual  weak- 
ness, or  evaporate  into  a  harmless  or  dangerous  fanaticism. 

(4)  Moral  Science  is  also  often  needed  as  a  guide  to  correct 
(4)  Practi-  answcrs  to  practical  questions  of  duty.  It  is  often 
caiiy  useful,  g^j^j  ^^^j  believed,  by  men  of  high  authority,  that 
Moral  Science  is  of  little  or  no  practical  use  in  critical  or 
doubtful  circumstances,  being  oftener  a  hinderance  than  a  help. 
An  honest  intention,  it  is  argued,  and  an  ingenuous  mind,  are 
more  efficient  to  lead  men  to  a  wise  judgment  than  the  most 
enlarged  acquaintance  with  the  history  of  ethical  theories  or 
the  acutest  examination  of  ethical  principles. 

We  concede,  that,  so  far  as  the  intentions  and  aims  of  men 
are  concerned.  Moral  Science  can  be  of  no  special 

Especially  '■ 

on  critical  Service,  because  all  men  are  or  may  be  sufficiently 
occasions.  informed  as  to  the  right  and  the  wrong  of  their  pur- 
poses and  desires.  But  when  a  question  is  raised  in  respect 
to  the  external  actions  ;  when  men  ask,  not  what  they  should 
desire  or  purpose,  but  what  they  should  actually  do,  —  then  the 
utmost  wisdom  is  often  required  which  Moral  Science  can  fur- 
nish. This  wisdom  will  take  the  form  of  a  clear  statement  of 
solid  and  well-considered  fundamental  principles,  of  a  familiar 
acquaintance  with  the  nature  of  man,  of  sagacious  inductions 
from  the  tendency  of  the  actions  which  we  are  to  do  or  avoid, 
and  of  a  wise  forecast  of  the  future,  grounded  on  the  largest 
experiences  of  the  past.  But  all  these  are  the  results  of  the 
training  and  knowledge  which  Moral  Science  imparts. 

Standards  of  duty  are  like  standards  of  time.     In  the  ordi- 


§6.]  INTBODUCTOBY.  15 

nary  exigencies  of  life,  when  no  special  exactness  is  required, 
the  kitchen  clock,  or  an  imperfectly  adjusted  and  not  over- 
accurate  watch,  will  answer.  But  if  we  are  to  determine  the 
longitude,  and  need  to  know  it  within  a  fraction  of  a  mile,  in 
order  to  determine  in  which  direction  we  must  steer  if  we  would 
avoid  a  reef,  or  escape  a  promontory,  then  we  need  the  best- 
made  and  the  best-adjusted  chronometer  that  solid  science  can 
furnish,  or  instructed  art  can  employ.-^ 

(5)  Moral  Science  is  not  superfluous,  but  is  the  more  neces- 
sary for  those  who  accept  a  supernatural  revelation        ^ 
of  duty.     It  may  be  said  or  thought,  that  whenever  Science  not 
the  principles  or  rules  of  duty  are  fixed  and  declared  by^a'^super- 

by  authority,  whether  human  or  divine,  the  neces-  natural  reve- 
lation. 
sity  of  any  scientific  study  of  either  is  superseded. 

There  is  no  room  for  science,  it  is  urged,  in  respect  to  prin- 
ciples which  are  settled,  and  rules  which  are  prescribed. 

To  this  it  may  be  replied,  that  the  so-called  principles  of 
duty  which  are  revealed  to  man  are  not  principles  in  the 
scientific  sense,  but  are  usually  practical  maxims  or  compre- 
hensive directions  which  respect  the  feelings  and  conduct. 
Even  these,  however,  imply  an  underlying  philosophy  of  facts 
and  relations.  To  develop  and  state  these  philosophical 
truths  is  the  special  function  of  Moral  Science,  and  is  as  much 
needed  with  respect  to  revealed  as  to  natural  Ethics,  and 
perhaps  more ;  forasmuch  as  the  revealed  Ethics  must  of 
necessity,  and  therefore  of  divine  wisdom,  be  taught  in  popular 
language,  and  after  a  logic  which  excludes  scientific  exactness 
or  systematic  completeness.  To  give  these  truths 'the  form 
and  authority  of  science,  to  translate  them  into  the  conceptions 
and  terms  of  the  schools,  and  to  enforce  them  by  their  logic, 
Moral  Science  is  required. 

Moreover,    the    maxims    or    practical   principles    by    which 

1  This  illustration  was  suggested  by  the  observation  of  Coleridge,  that 
"  the  conscience  bears  the  same  relation  to  God  as  an  accurate  time-piece 
bears  to  the  sun."  —  The  Friend,  Miscellany  the  First,  essay  iv. 


16  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL   SCIENCE.  [§  6. 

morality  is  taught  in  the  Scriptures  must  of  necessity  be  very 
general.  Morality  could  not  possibly  be  taught  for  the  human 
race  by  any  other  method.  To  provide  a  collection  of  specific, 
or  even  of  very  general  directions  for  every  possible  exigency 
of  human  existence,  would  be  imiX)ssible.  The  definite  rules 
required  to  meet  the  needs  of  a  single  individual  for  a  week 
or  a  month,  if  fully  written  out,  would  fill  a  volume,  if  not  a 
score  of  volumes.  The  needs  of  ordinary  and  extraordinary 
life  are  also  very  dififerent.  Certain  principles  laid  down,  and 
rules  provided,  might,  perhaps,  be  easily  applied  to  the  occa- 
sions of  ordinary  experience ;  but,  so  soon  as  any  case  becomes 
doubtful  or  difficult,  not  only  must  the  underlying  principle 
be  clearly  understood,  precisely  stated,  and  carefully  guarded, 
but  the  present  exigency  must  be  shown  to  be  similar  to  the 
occasion  for  which  the  truth  or  precept  was  originally  uttered. 
In  ordinary  life  nothing  more  may  be  needed  to  interpret  and 
apply  the  Ethics  of  the  New  Testament  than  common  sense 
and  common  honesty.  But  if  a  case  is  doubtful,  and  the  cir- 
cumstances are  complicated,  the  profoundest  reflection  and  the 
clearest  knowledge  may  be  required  to  interpret  the  ethical 
import  of  the  inspired  teachings,  when  these  are  to  be  applied 
to  a  perplexed  question  or  a  tangled  controversy. 

(6)  The  study  of  Moral  Science  is  favorable  to  faith  in  the 
Christian  revelation.     The  most  decisive   evidence 

(fl)  Is  farora-  ,  ,     .         . 

bie  to  faith  in  of  the  truth  and  authority  ot  this  revelation  is  fur- 
t^^T  I'atf  ***'*"  nished  by  its  moral  import,  and  its  adaptation  to 
the  moral  nature  and  necessities  of  man.  To  feel 
the  force  of  this  argument,  and  even  to  understand  its  import, 
one  must  first  do  justice  to  the  facts  on  which  it  rests  :  i.e.,  to 
the  moral  nature  and  wants  of  man,  on  the  one  hand,  as  fur- 
nishing the  occasion  for  a  revelation  ;  and  to  the  moral  import 
of  Christianity,  on  the  other,  as  adapted  to  these  wants.  The 
study  of  Moral  Science  holds  the  attention  to  both  these  data, 
or  terms  of  argument,  in  such  a  way  as  to  lead  us  to  believe  in 
the  reality,  and  appreciate  the  significance,  of  both.     So  far  as 


§  6.]  INTEODUCTOBY.  17 

it  is  favorable  to  belief  in  duty  and  to  an  intelligent  and  reflec- 
tive appreciation  of  its  importance,  so  far  must  it  prepare  the 
mind  to  judge  justly  and  to  measure  practically  the  adaptation 
to  man's  moral  needs  of  a  revelation,  the  most  decisive  argu- 
ment for  which  is,  that  it  could  never  have  originated  in  the 
invention,  or  the  aspirations  or  fancies   of  man  alone. 


PART  I. 


THE    THEORY    OF   DUTY. 


^^±^ 


0^  THE 


'trFIVBESITY, 


§7.] 


MAN  A  MORAL  PEBSON.  21 


CHAPTER    I. 

MAN   A   MORAL   PERSON,    PSYCHOLOGICALLY   CONSIDERED. 

§  7.  We  may  assume  that  moral  relations  or  qualities  pertain 
only  to  moral  persons  and  to  their  actions  or  char-  The  moral 
acter,  their  dispositions,  thoughts,  feelings,  and  mature, 
words.  We  inquire  then,  first  of  all,  who  is  a  moral  person, 
and  what  are  the  capacities  and  faculties  which  constitute  such 
a  person  ?  —  What  endowments  qualify  him  for  moral  activity 
and  its  responsibilities  ?  Following  the  order  of  topics  already 
suggested,  we  begin  with  the  psychological  analysis  of  man's 
moral  constitution  or  personality. 

Some  conceive  these  endowments  to  be  special,  and  additional 
to  those  by  which  the  other  functions  of  human  Howmiscon- 
nature  are  performed.  They  represent  to  them-  ceired. 
selves  and  others  certain  so-called  moral  endowments,  as 
superadded  to  the  intellect,  sensibility,  and  will,  with  the  other 
recognized  human  powers,  like  a  separate  attachment  or  gear- 
ing to  a  machine,  or  as  special  organs  in  a  plant  or  animal. 
To  this  special  nature  they  assign  the  moral  experiences  as 
separate  and  quasi-independent  functions,  even  though  these 
may  be  conceived  to  interact  with  the  inferior  powers  by  some 
unexplained  connection  whenever  man  acts  morally.  In  effect 
they  assume  or  imply  that  man  might  be  a  completely  furnished 
human  being,  and  yet  be  incapable  of  moral  judgments  and 
feelings,  and  consequently  conceive  that  the  endowments  which 
make  him  moral  might  be  alternately  attached  or  withdrawn, 
suspended  or  brought  into  action,  leaving  him  essentially  a 
man,  whether  with  or  without  them.     Some  make  this  moral 


22  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL  SCIENCE.  [§  8. 

faculty  to  be  the  originator  of  special  ideas,  which  they  name 
the  "  moral  reason,'*  as  an  inlet  or  discerner  of  moral  relations 
or  conceptions.  Others  conceive  it  as  a  special  sensibility 
called  the  "moral  sense,'*  originating  certain  feelings  from  or 
by  which  these  relations  are  intellectualized.  Others  deny  that 
there  is  any  special  moral  faculty  or  faculties,  but  hold  that 
man's  moral  nature  designates  the  whole  of  man's  conscious 
psychical  endowments  when  applied  to  a  special  subject-matter, 
and  employed  in  special  modes  of  activity.  They  contend  that 
man's  moral  personality  is  an  essential  consequent  of  his  com- 
plete and  developed  manhood,  and  that  the  two  cannot  be 
conceived  as  separable.  This  is  the  doctrine  of  this  treatise. 
This  question,  however,  need  not  be  discussed  at  the  outset. 

It  cannot  be  decided  at  the  beginning  of  our  in- 
Moral  expert-  , 

ences  inToive   quiries,  but  must  be  reserved  for  the  progress   of 

man's  three-    ^^j.  analysis,  and  be  developed  as  its  result.     The 

fold  powers.  *'  *^ 

consciousness  of  all  men,  however,  attests  so  much 
as  this,  which  indeed  all  men  are  ready  to  avow,  —  that  the 
powers  of  feeling^  will^  and  intellect^  are  concerned  in  all  the  moral 
phenomena.  The  theories  of  all  philosophers  concede  or  assert 
that  each  one  of  these  human  endowments  or  faculties  plays  a 
more  or  less  conspicuous  part  in  man's  moral  experiences. 
Whether  any  other  faculty  is  required  to  account  for  these 
phenomena,  and  the  relations  and  feelings  which  they  involve, 
will  appear  from  a  thorough  psychological  analysis  of  the  phe- 
nomena themselves,  and  the  consideration  of  the  function  or 
rSle  which ,  each  of  these  usually  recognized  human  faculties 
fulfils  in  man's  moral  life. 

§  8.  We  begin  this  analysis  with  tlie  Sensibility,  or  the  capa- 
city in  man  for  feelings  and  desires. 

The  sensibilities  are  often  called  the  **  active  powers,"  that 
The  sensibii-  is,  the  act-impelliug  powers,  also  "  the  springs  of 
**^'n*tT  action,"  because  they  impel  to  activities  of  every 
for.  kind.     The  exercise  of  a  sensibility  or  the  capacity 

for  feeling,  at  least  when  in  voluntary  or  active  energy,  is  also 


§  8.]  MAN  A  MOBAL  PERSON.  23 

the  object  of  moral  approval  or  disapproval;  that  is,  it  is 
recognized  as  morally  good  or  bad.  Hence  the  sensibilities,  or 
feelings,  are  called  moral  as  well  as  active  powers. 

An  act  or  state  of  the  sensibilities  is  distinguished  from  an 
act  of  the  intellect  by  the  following  features  :  — 

(1)  It  is   purely  subjective,    being   wholly   confined   to   the 
soul  which  experiences  it.     In  an  intellectual  act,   j^^tof  dis- 
the   man   always   apprehends  an  object,  which  he  tinguished 
distinguishes   from    himself,    the    knowing    agent,   intellect,  (i) 
even  when  the   object   is    created  by  himself   and  Subjective, 
exists  for  himself;  i.e.,  whether  the  object  known  is  a  subject- 
object  or  an  object-object.     An  act  or  state  of  feeling,  on  the 
other  hand,  is  altogether  subjective. 

(2)  The  act  of  feeling  is  dependent  on  an  act  of  intel- 
lect for  the  object  which  excites  it.  This  is  obvi-  /2)Dependeiit 
ously  and  confessedly  true  of  all  the  higher  and  the  on  the  intei- 
fully  developed  feelings.    The  law  is  universal,  that 

to  the  exercise  of  any  such  emotion  some  object  must  be  appre- 
hended by  the  intellect  which  is  fitted  to  excite  and  maintain  it. 
The  truth  of  this  law  is  attested  by  the  testimony  of  experience, 
that,  if  we  would  cease  to  be  interested  in  any  object,  we  jmust 
withdraw  our  attention  from  it ;  and  by  the  kindred  rule,  that 
the  strength  or  energy  of  our  feelings,  other  things  being  equal, 
is  proportioned  to  the  intensity  and  exclusiveness  of  the  occu* 
pation  of  the  intellect  with  the  exciting  object.  It  is  not 
asserted  that  any  period  of  time  must  elapse  between  the  con- 
scious act  of  knowing  and  the  conscious  act  of  feeling.  The 
dependence  is  causal,  not  chronological,  as  in  other  like  cases 
in  which  real  relations  are  discerned  without  the  conscious 
lapse  of  time. 

A  possible  exception  to  this  precedence  of  intellectual  appre- 
hension to  the  emotional  experience  might  be  urged  ^  possible 
in  the  case  of  the  bodily  sensations,  not  a  few  urging  exception, 
that  to  the  intellectual  act  of  sense-perception  the  experience 
of  sensation   proper  is  the   essential   pre-condition.      If  this 


24  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL  SCIENCE.  [§  8. 

exception  be  allowed,  it  would  not  overturn  the  testimony  of 
our  conscious  experience  in  respect  to  the  conditions  of  emotion 
proper,  confirmed  as  it  is  by  the  practical  rules  which  are  uni- 
formly acknowledged  in  respect  to  the  control  of  the  feelings 
by  applying  or  withdrawing  the  attention. 

We  must  distinguish,  also,  between  the  knowledge  that  some- 
thing is,  and  the  knowledge  of  what  it  is.  To  a  large  extent 
the  knowledge  of  the  second  description  pertains  to  those  rela- 
tions to  the  sensibility,  which,  as  known,  are  the  conditions  of 
the  re-excitement  of  the  same. 

Others  contend  that  before  the  development  of  definite,  and, 
Opposing  ®^  ^^  speak,  intellectualized  or  intelligent  emotions, 
Tiews  and  these  must  be  preceded  by  rudimentary  impulses  or 
instincts  which  are  emotional  in  their  nature.  Were 
this  allowed,  it  would  not  set  aside  the  truth  that  in  the  emotions 
proper,  and  to  the  developed  mind,  an  intellectual  apprehension 
is  essential  as  the  pre-condition  of  the  renewed  subjective  expe- 
rience. That  this  is  true  of  all  the  positive  and  conscious  feel- 
ings, is  obvious  from  the  circumstance  that  the  character  of 
these  emotions  in  different  individuals  is  determined  altogether 
by  the  complicated  and  often  remote  relations  which  the  intel- 
lect discerns  of  the  same  object  at  different  times.  How  a 
man  feels  with  respect  to  an  object  of  interest  must  depend 
upon  what  he  Jinds  in  it,  or  knows  of  it.  The  pleasure  or 
pain  which  any  object  can  give,  whether  it  be  an  object  of 
sense,  or  fancy,  or  fact,  having  few  or  manifold  relations, 
or  whether  it  be  a  recondite  scientific  truth  or  principle,  must 
depend  on  the  capacity  of  the  mind  to  discern  its  capabili- 
ties when  experienced  or  thought  of,  to  please  or  offend  the 
sensibility. 

(3)  The  third  characteristic  of  an  emotional  experience  is, 
(3)  Uniformly  ^^^*  ^^  ^^  uniformly  either  pleasurable  or  painful, 
pleasant  or  The  pleasure  or  pain  may  be  feeble  in  energy, 
pa  n  u .  Either  may  be  so  weak  as  to  seem  scarcely  dis- 

tinguished from  the  other,  and  consequently  may  be  pronounced 


§9.] 


MAN  A  MORAL  PERSON.  25 


indifferent  by  comparison  with  the  more  positive  experiences  that 
resemble  it  in  kind  ;*  but  it  is  not  conceivable  that  what  we  call 
a  feeling  or  emotion  should  not  take  some  low  form  at  least,  of 
the  subjectively  painful  or  pleasant. 

The  appellations  for  the  capacity  of  feeling  and  its  various 
acts  and  states  are  few  and  indefinite.     TJie  se7isi- 
hility^  the  appetites^  the  sensitivity^   the  desires^  the  fo^J*power,"* 
active,  motive,  or  emotional  powers,  the  capacity  of  »«*»,  and 
feeling  and  the  heart,  designate  the  capacity.     The 
sensations,  the  feelings,  the  affections,  the  sensibilities,  the  de- 
sires, the  passid7is,  the  emotions,  the  sentiments,  are  used  for  the 
exercises  or  experiences  of  the  power,  —  either  for  the  whole  or 
special  classes,  with  much  indefiniteness.     For  both  power  and 
act  the  nomenclature  is  singularly  defective  in  technical  pre- 
cision, and  fixedness  of  application.     The  limited  and  shadowy 
character  of   the  terminology  of   the  sensibilities  is  a  natural 
consequence  of  the  comparatively  little  attention  which  this  class 
of  psychical  phenomena  has  received  from  the  psychologist,  in 
whatever  way  this  may  be  explained. 

§  9.   Two  elements  are  distinguishable  in  every  exercise  of  the 
sensibility,  —  the  emotion  proper,  and  its  attendant 
desire.     The  law  is  universal,  every  feeling,  whether  of  desire  dis- 
pleasurable  or  painfid,  is  no  sooner  experienced  than  fr"J"li,e'*eie. 
it  awakens  a  desire  that  the  pleasure  may  be  contin-  ment  of  emo- 

, ,  „  .        .         tion  proper. 

ued  or  the  pain  may  terminate.  "  ii^ven  m  joy 
itself,  that  which  keeps  up  the  action  whereon  the  enjoyment 
depends,  is  the  desire  to  continue  it,  and  the  fear  to  lose  it" 
(Locke:  Essay,  book  ii.  chap.  21,  §  39).  If  the  feeling  is 
remembered  or  expected,  it  awakens  a  desire  that  the  pleasure 
may  be  experienced  or  the  pain  may  be  averted.  The  two  are 
elements  of  one  apparently  indivisible  experience,  one  element 
passing  into  the  other  by  a  transition  quicker  than  thought  can 
trace,  and  under  a  connection  which  analysis  cannot  discrimi- 
nate as  before  and  after.  The  element  of  feeling  proper  is 
purely  subjective,  in  which  the  soul  is  a  receiver  or  sufferer. 


26  ELEMENTS  OF  MOBAL  SCIENCE.  [§  9. 

The  desire  also  is  subjective  in  so  far  as  it  is  occupied  with  the 
pleasurable  subjective  condition  which  it  would  retain,  or  the 
painful  condition  which  it  would  exclude  or  avoid.  So  soon, 
however,  as  any  object,  whether  subject-object  or  object-object,  is 
known,  or  recognized  as  the  cause  or  occasion  of  the  pleasure 
or  pain,  the  object  itself  is  desired  or  repelled.  Speaking  more 
exactly,  as  the  experience  has  two  elements,  each  of  these  ele- 
ments has  its  correspondent  object  or  condition  set  over  against 
itself  as  its  exciting  occasion  or  cause. ^  The  object  of  the  feeling 
Object  of  each  P^^P^^  ^^  ^^^^^  agent,  be  it  a  thing,  or  be  it  a  thought, 
of  these  eie-  imagination  or  memory,  which  is  capable  of  exciting 
the  sensibility  to  a  pleasurable  or  painful  affection. 
The  capacity  of  this  object  to  cause  this,  and  the  effect  itself,  are 
ultimate  facts.  Thus  light,  sound,  intellectual  activity,  the 
society  or  sympathy  of  others,  the  happiness  of  others,  —each 
gives  pleasure  to  the  sense  or  soul.  TJie  object  of  the  desire  that 
springs  out  of  the  feeling,  experienced  or  thought  of,  is  the  feel- 
ing itself,  whether  pleasurable  or  painful,  and  whether  the  desire 
is  an  appetence  or  aversion.  This  object  is  purely  subjective, 
but  it  is  the  primary  object  on  which  the  desire  directly  termi- 
nates. Its  secoudai-y  or  mediate  object  is  its  occasion  or 
cause,  whether  it  be  subject-object  or  object-object,  so  soon 
and  so  far  as  it  suggests  or  excites  that  affection  which  is  the 
primary  and  proper  object  of  the  attendant  desire.  Inasmuch 
as  we  do  not  often  have  occasion  to  distinguish  between  the  two 
elements  of  the  subjective  experience,  it  is  not  surprising  that 
the  primary  and  secondary  objects  of  desire  should  not  always 
be  distinguished,  and  are  frequently  interchanged  with  one 
another  in  thought  and  language. 

Thus  it  is  said  by  Dugald  Stewart :  "  As  the  object  of  hunger 
is  not  happiness,  but  food,  so  the  object  of  curiosity  is  not 
happiness,  but  knowledge.    .   .   .   Our  appetites   can  with   no 


1  In  the  German  language,  Empfindung  is  apijropriated  to  the  purely 
subjective  element,  whether  painful  or  pleasant. 


§  10.]  MAN  A  MORAL  PEBSON.  27 

propriety  be  called  selfisJi,  for  they  are  directed  to  their  respec- 
tive objects  as  ultimate  ends,  and  they  must  all  have  operated, 
in  the  first  instance^  prior  to  any  experience  of  the  pleasure 
arising  from  their  gratification"  {Active  and  Moral  Fotvers, 
book  i.  chap.  i.).  In  each  of  these  two  sentences  it  is  ob- 
vious that  '^the  object"  is  used  in  one  of  the  two  senses 
referred  to. 

Some  writers  use  the  term  "desire"  to  designate  a  limited 
or  special  class  of  the  sensibilities,  and  thereby  un-  special  use  of 
designedly  sanction  the  inference  that  the  element  "desire." 
of  desire  is  limited  to  these  affections,  or  at  least  is  conspicu- 
ous in  their  exercise.  Thus  Dugald  Stewart  (Active  and 
Moral  Powers^  Introduction)  divides  the  active  principles  into 
five  classes,  —  appetites,  desires^  affections,  self-love,  and  the 
moral  faculty,  —  implying  that  the  element  of  desire  is  limited 
to  one  only  of  the  five.  In  his  subsequent  reasoning,  more- 
over, he  expressly  excludes  desire  from  the  affections  and 
the  moral  faculty.  This  classification  is  not  uncommon,  the 
desires  being  restricted  to  a  class  of  the  sensibilities  which  are 
concerned  with  objects  that  are  intermediate  between  the  mate- 
rial on  the  one  hand,  and  the  personal  on  the  other,  as  desire  of 
property^  power,  esteem,  etc.  This  special  limitation  of  the 
affection  of  desire,  and  the  term  "desire,"  is  sanctioned  by 
many  writers  with  the  mistaken  and  misleading  inference  to 
which  we  have  referred. 

§  10.  The  correctness  of  our  analysis  of  desire  is  aflSrmed 
and  attested  by  the  consciousness  of  every  person      ^  ^j^^^_ 
who  reflects  upon  his  own  psychical  states.     It  is  ness  attests 
also   confirmed   by  the   language  which   is   uncon-   given"of^enM)- 
sciousl}^  used  to  give   expression   to   these   states,   tionandde- 
Not  unfrequently  this  language  leaves  almost,  if  not 
altogether,  out  of  view,  the  object  that  conditionates  or  stimu- 
lates the  subjective  emotion  proper,  and  emphasizes  this  emo- 
tion as  pleasurable  or  painful,  and  this  only.     Thus  the  friend 
says  to  the  friend  whom  he  loves  most  disinterestedly,  "  I  am 


28  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL   SCIENCE.  [§  10. 

most  happy  to  be  in  your  society,  or  to  forego  my  pleasure  for 
your  sake."  The  compassionate  soul  expresses  his  own  unself- 
ish sympathy  in  terms  which  describe  only  his  own  subjective 
pain  :  "  Your  suffering  fills  me  with  grief.'*  The  patriot  says, 
'-'' Dulce  .  .  .  jp'"'^  patria  mori.'*  The  lover  exclaims,  ''Can  I 
be  so  blest?  "  the  devout,  "  I  delight  to  do  thy  will,  O  God  ! '' 
In  most  of  these  expressions  the  disinterestedness  of  the  affec- 
tion is  emphasized  paradoxically,  as  it  were,  —  by  making 
prominent  the  subjective  pleasure  of  the  affection  as  a  measure 
of  the  strength  of  its  attendant  desire. 

If  we  ask,  in  the  case  of  each  of  these  persons,  why  the 
object,  be  it  a  person,  thing,  or  thought,  pleases  or  displeases, 
we  can  give  no  answer,  except  that  his  nature,  originally  or  by 
habit,  is  such  as  spontaneously  to  respond  with  pleasure  or  pain 
to  its  presence  and  its  activity.  Moreover,  we  judge  of  the 
original  or  acquired  capabilities  and  tastes  of  a  man  by  the" 
objects  which  please  or  displease  him.  But  if  we  ask  what 
in  the  object  is  desired,  or  why  it  is  desired,  we  must  answer, 
For  its  own  original  or  secondary  capacity  to  please  or  dis- 
please. That  this  is  true  of  all  those  objects  which  address 
the  sense-organs  will  not  be  denied.  It  is  still  further  con- 
firmed by  the  generally  acknowledged  truth,  that  the  sensible 
qualities  of  material  objects  are  phrased  in  the  categories  of 
causality  or  adaptation,  with  reference  to  the  effects  which 
they  produce  in  the  sentient  soul.  Much  more  is  this  true 
of  those  higher  relations  which  conditionate  the  personal  emo- 
tions. 

To  assert  that  we  desire  the  object,  and  not  the  good  which 
it  occasions,  is  disproved  still  further  by  the  well- 
object  for  its  known  fact  that  we  often  desire  objects  under  a 
mistaken  judgment  of  the  properties  which  they 
are  supposed  to  possess.  In  every  such  case  the  instant  that 
we  discover  our  mistake,  our  desire  is  turned  into  aversion  or 
the  converse ;  as  an  apple  or  orange  which  looks  fair  and  at- 
tractive is  not  unfrequently  found,  on  tasting,  to  be  insipid  or 


§  10.]  MAN  A  MORAL  PEJISON.  29 

offensive,^  or  sometimes  it  happens  that  a  person's  countenance 
or  manners  seem  to  indicate  the  opposite  of  his  real  feelings 
and  character  as  discovered  by  closer  acquaintance.  In  such  a 
case  our  complacency  and  desire,  or  their  opposites,  are  sud- 
denly and  consciously  reversed.  That  this  law  holds  good  of 
the  personal  affections,  and  even  the  most  disinterested,  is  evi- 
dent from  the  sudden  changes  which  these  affections  undergo 
on  the  discovery  of  unexpected  occasions  for  the  same. 

We  do,  indeed,  often  say  that  we  desire  or  dislike  an  object 
for  its  own  sake,  as  knowledge  or  food  ;  but  we  uniformly  mean 
by  the  phrase,  "  for  its  capacity  to  affect  us  directly  with  pleas- 
ure or  pain."  For  example  :  we  desire  knowledge  or  society  for 
the  pleasure  which  they  give  us  of  themselves,  and  not  for  any 
secondary  advantages  which,  will  follow,  as  for  the  reputation  or 
wealth  which  knowledge  commands,  or  which  society  may  offer 
to  us.  To  deny  that  we  desire  an  object  for  the  pleasure  or 
satisfaction  which  it  gives,  would  be  to  deny  that  it  gives 
pleasure,  which  would  be  the  same  as  to  deny  that  we  desire 
it  at  all.  The  language  used,  "  for  its  own  sake,"  is  invariably 
employed  to  convey  the  meaning  that  the  object  of  itself,  and 
directly,  gives  pleasure  or  good. 

It  was  a  current  maxim  with  the  Scholastics,  '-'  Ignoti  nulla 
Ci^picZo,"  which  affirms  our  position  distinctly  and  fully;  viz., 
that  every  object  desired  must  be  known  or  believed  to  stand  in 
some  relation  to  the  affectional  capacity  of  the  person  desiring 
it,  and  that  this  known  relation  is  the  direct  object  of  the  con- 
sequent desire,  and  the  remote  reason  why  the  object  is  desired. 

1  Tims  Milton  narrates  of  the  fallen  spirits :  — 

"  Greedily  they  plucked 
The  fruitage  fair  to  sight,  like  that  which  grew 
Near  that  bituminous  lake  where  Sodom  flamed; 
This,  more  delusive,  not  the  touch  but  taste 
Deceived ;  they,  fondly  thinking  to  allay 
Their  appetite  with  gust,  instead  of  fruit 
Chewed  bitter  ashes,  which  the  offended  taste 
With  spattering  lioise  rejected." 

Paradise  Lost,  book  x. 


30  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL   SCIENCE.        [§§  11,  12. 

§  11.  It  may  be  granted,  to  those  who  insist  upon  it,  that  man,  like  other 
sentient  beings,  is  endowed  witli  certain  impulses  which  ex- 
oss  )  y  ex.  j^j^g  jjjj^^  ^Q  certain  determinate  forms  of  activity,  previously 
instinctive  *^  *"^  independently  of  any  conscious  experience  of  the  sub- 
impulses,  jective  good  which  they  bring,  or  the  ends  for  which  they  are 
provided.  It  may  even  be  conceded  that  such  an  impulse 
may  lie  at  the  root  of  every  one  of  the  conscious  sensibilities,  and  originally 
prompt  it  to  action.  But  the  impelling  force  of  any  such  impulse  is  clearly 
distinguishable  from  the  exercise  of  the  intelligent  desire,  when  it  responds 
to  the  good  which  the  sensibility  gives,  before  it  is  in  any  sense  controlled 
by  the  will,  and  therefore  can  have  no  moral  quality.  If  we  call  that  which  is 
purely  instinctive  a  blind  imjiulse  (German,  Trieb),  it  is  clearly  distinguished 
from  intelligent  desire.  Desire  proper  is  defined  by  Spinoza  (Ethica,  part 
iii.  prop.  9,  Schol.),  "  Cupiditas  est  appetitus  cum  ejusdem  conscientia."  In 
this  sense,  the  maxim  "  If/noti  nulla  cvpido  "  is  eminently  true  and  impor- 
tant. Of  mere  instinct  or  impulse,  we  cannot,  indeed,  affirm  this  ;  but 
Ethics  takes  no  account  of  instinctive  impulses,  whether  they  pertain  to 
the  senses  or  the  soul. 

An  able  writer  (Ludovic  Carrau,  La  Morale  TJtilitaire,  Paris,  2me  partie, 
chaps,  ii.,  iii.)  has  urged  against  the  utilitarian  philosophy  with  great 
energy  and  ability  the  critical  objection,  that  it  fails  to  recognize  the 
possibility  of  those  unconscious  impulses  which  precede  all  experience, 
and  exclude  all  knowledge,  of  the  subjective  good  or  evil  which  their  grat- 
ification involves.  The  criticism  is  certainly  good  against  any  theory 
which  fails  to  recognize  original  susceptibilities  in  the  soul  to  good  and 
evil,  attended  it  may  be  by  unconscious  instincts  and  impulses  to  the  appro- 
priate activities,  or  which  seeks  to  explain  the  unselfish  desires  by  some 
secondary  relation  to  the  self-centred  or  unsocial  instincts  of  the  individ- 
ual. But  it  cannot  hold  against  the  analysis  which  we  have  given  of  the 
intelligent  desires,  and  the  place  which  we  have  assigned  to  desire  in  the 
conscious  experiences  of  men.  We  submit  that  all  impulses  which  remain 
forever  below  consciousness  can  have  no  relation  to  those  affections  and 
desires  which  impel  to  intelligent  and  responsible  volition. 

§  12.  It  is  objected  against  the  view  asserted,  (1)  That  we 
Objections  to  ^^®  "^*  coDScious,  ill  the  act  of  desire,  of  referring 
the  position  to  our  Subjective  good  as  its  direct  and  proper 
We  are  not  object.  Let  this  be  admitted.  The  fact  that  we 
conscious  of    do  not  consciouslv  recognize  every  element  or  rela- 

referrlng  to        .  ,  .      ,  .    .  .        , 

subjective        tion  oi  our  psychical  activities  by  no  means  proves 
^**^^*  that  we  do  not  apprehend  them  in  fact.     In  the 

judgments  of   vision  by  the  acquired  perceptions  we  do  not 
always  distinguish  the  data  by  which  we  judge  and  perceive. 


§12.]  MAN  A  MORAL  PERSON.  31 

We  look  at  a  distant  object,  we  determine  its  height  or  its 
size,  but  do  not  distinguish  the  indications  which  give  our 
conchision,  and  yet  we  unquestionably  reach  that  conchision  by 
means  of  them.  They  enter  into  our  conscious  experience  in 
the  process,  though  we  may  not  notice  or  recall  them  in  the 
result. 

In  respect  to  this  point,  the  examples  of  desires  acknowl- 
edged to  be  secondary  are  pertinent  and  decisive.  The  desire  of 
money,  i.e.,  coin  or  paper,  is  admitted  to  be  secondary.  Not 
only  is  it  acknowledged  that  money  is  itself  desirable  for  the 
good  which  it  will  purchase,  but  any  thing  which  is  judged 
to  be  money  is  desired  only  so  long  as  it  is  supposed  to  have 
purchasing  power.  Let  a  man  see  a  coin  or  a  bank-note  at  his 
feet,  and  he  grasps  it  with  eagerness ;  but,  so  soon  as  he  dis- 
covers that  either  is  counterfeit,  he  drops  it  as  readily.  And 
yet  he  is  not  aware  that  he  thinks  of  or  desires  any  thing, 
except  what  he  calls  the  object,  pure  and  simple. 

It  is  also  true,  that  under  the  influence  of  rapid,  and  what 
are  sometimes  called  the  inseparable  associations,  the  desires 
can  be  stimulated,  as  it  would  seem,  by  the  object  only,  with- 
out the  distinct  apprehension  or  recognition  of  that  which  makes 
it  either  offensive  or  pleasing.  And  yet  a  moment's  reflection 
will  convince  any  one,  that,  had  the  associations  been  reversed, 
the  object  which  pleases  would  offend,  or  the  opposite,  and  the 
desire  would  follow  the  painful  or  pleasing  experience. 

(2)  It  is  urged  again,  that,  in  the  case  of  active  and  absorb- 
ing desires,  the  object,  as  such,  fills  the  mind,  and 
engrosses  the  attention.     Let  a  drowning  man  see  ject  desired 
a  boat  or  a  rope,  and  his  thoughts,  we  are  told,  are 
engrossed  by  the  one  or  the  other  as  he  longs  and  struggles  to 
lay  hold  of  it.    He  attends  only  to  the  rope,  and  does  not  reflect 
on  its  relations  to  his  safety.    The  more  active  the  impulse,  the 
more  completely  is  the  mind  absorbed  with  the  object  which  he 
strives  to  reach.     This,  in  a  sense,  is  true.     But  suppose,  that, 
as  he  is  struggling,  the  rope  is  seen  to  float  loosely  on  the  water, 


32  ELEMENTS  OF  MOBAL   SCIENCE.  [§  12. 

and  to  lose  its  connection  with  the  shore  ;  or  that  the  man  sud- 
denly touches  the  bottom,  and  no  longer  needs  the  boat :  the 
newly  discovered  relations  of  the  boat  or  the  rope  to  his  needs 
in  an  instant  change  his  desires.  It  follows  that  the  object 
never  originally  occupied  the  mind,  in  any  of  these  cases,  to 
the  exclusion  of  its  relations  to  his  feelings  and  needs.  These 
relations  were  not  only  discerned,  but  were  the  only  objects  of 
interest  to  his  feelings. 

The  reason  why,  in  the  examples  supposed,  the  object  must 
be  present  to  excite  desire,  and  why  it  seems  to  fill  and  engross 
the  soul,  is  that  it  must  be  perceived  or  thought  of  in  order  to 
awaken  and  sustain  the  feeling  or  affection  which  prompts  the 
desire.  The  instant  it  should  be  displaced  by  auother  object, 
which  has  other  relations  to  the  soul,  the  desire  must,  of  neces- 
sity, cease  to  burn,  for  want  of  the  fuel  on  which  it  might  feed. 

(3)  It  is  objected  still  further  that  the  instinctive  desires  or 
(8)  The  in-  impulses  do  not  conform  to  this  rule.  When  the 
gtinctiTc  de-    young  sccks  its  mothcr,  or  the  animal  is  impelled  to 

sires  do  not      .,.,  ,  .. 

follow  this  its  destined  activities,  its  impulses,  it  is  urged,  are 
*"°'®'  not  moved  by  any  experience  of  belief  of  the  good 

which  the  act  or  object  has  in  reserve.  This  may  be  truly  said  ; 
but,  so  far  as  this  is  true,  an  instinctive  impulse  is  not  properly 
a  desire.  "Instinct"  is  defined  by  Paley  as  "a  propensity 
prior  to  experience,  and  independent  of  instruction."  So  far 
as  it  is  prior  to  experience,  and  certainly  so  far  as  it  is  inde- 
pendent of  instruction,  it  is  independent  of  knowledge  of  any 
kind.  But  instinct,  it  may  be  said,  is  stimulated  in  no  small 
degree  by  the  pleasure  which  attends  the  special  activity  for 
which  nature  has  destined  the  animal.  If  this  is  true,  then  the 
instinctive  impulses  conform  to  the  laws  and  methods  of  those 
desires  which  are  intelligent. 

(4)  Machiess        (^)  ^^  ^^  urged,  with  greater  plausibility  and  con- 
do  the  affec   fidcucc  at  first  thought,  that  tliis  law  of  desire  does 
not  hold  good  of  the  so-called  disinterested  or  per- 
sonal affections  ;  as,  for  example,  of  the  affections  of  pity  and 


§12.]  MAN  A  MORAL  PERSON.  33 

love.     Some  writers   have   gone  so  far  as   to   deny  that  the 
element  of  desire  enters  into  the  personal  affections  at  all. 

Of  this  objection  we  would  observe,  Suppose  it  were  true 
that  the  well-being  of  the  friends  whom  we  love  did  not  make 
us  glad,  or  the  suffering  of  the  distressed  did  not  make  us  sad : 
what,  in  such  a  case,  would  be  thought  of  the  disinterestedness 
of  either  our  love  or  our  pity  ?  No  one  will  deny  that  the  well- 
being  or  the  suffering  of  those  whom  we  love  or  pity  affects 
us  pleasantly  and  painfully  as  really  and  as  directly  as  do  the 
objects  of  the  simpler  desires ;  e.g.,  as  a  delicious  fruit,  or  the 
society  of  a  friend,  or  the  exercise  of  power.  The  disinterested 
affections  differ  from  those  that  terminate  with  ourselves,  in  that 
their  moving  occasion  or  their  exciting  object  —  the  original 
element  in  the  process  —  is  the  happiness  of  another,  or  his 
relief  from  suffering,  without  respect  to  any  so-called  private 
interest  of  our  own :  in  other  words,  it  is  an  ultimate  fact  that 
we  are  made  glad  or  sad  by  his  happiness,  or  his  relief  from 
suffering.  The  capacity  for  this  particular  form  of  happiness 
is,  in  its  very  nature,  disinterested.  The  happiness  or  sorrow 
depends  directly  on  the  good  or  ill  of  another ;  but  the  relation 
of  the  exciting  object  to  the  consequent  desire  is  the  same, 
whether  this  object  gives  good  to  ourselves  directly  and  exclu- 
sively, or  whether  it  be  the  happiness  or  calamity  of  another 
which  makes  us  alternately  glad  or  sad.  Whatever  be  the  ob- 
ject, it  must  hold  the  same  relation  to  the  affection,  so  far  as 
that  affection  becomes  a  desire.  President  Hopkins  says  very 
truly  (The  Laiv  of  Love,  part  ii.  class  i.  chap,  v.),  "There 
are  two  ways  in  which  subjective  good  may  come  to  us :  one 
is  through  the  action  of  other  things  and  persons  upon  us ;  the 
other,  through  the  activity  of  our  own  powers  put  forth  with  ref- 
erence to  them,  that  is,  virtually  through  receiving  and  giving." 
And  Professor  Calderwood  (Handbook  of  Moral  Philosophy, 
part  ii.  chap,  i.)  :  "In  practical  tendency  the  affections  are 
the  reverse  of  the  desires.  Desires  absorb :  affections  give 
out.'*     It  should  be  remembered,  however,  that  the  affections 


34  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL   SCIENCE.  [§  12. 

which  ^^give"  are  purely  natural,  not  voluntary.  As  natural 
and  passive  emotions,  they  are  disinterested,  unselfish,  altru- 
istic; but,  as  involving  or  leaping  into  desires,  they  obey  the 
law  of  desire  which  we  have  explained. 

This  contrast  between  these  two  classes  of  emotions  with 
The  analysis  which  we  are  at  present  concerned,  it  will  be  ob- 
docs  not  con-  served,  holds  good  of  them  as  natural  sensibilities, 

cern  the  vol-  ' 

nntary  affec-  ^^^  ^^^  ^t  all  as  penetrated  and  transfigured  by  the 
tions.  ^ju^  When  the  affection  becomes  voluntary,  whether 

it  is  disinterested  or  self-centred,  whether  it  is  a  giving  or  re- 
ceioing  impulse,  depends  on  the  question  whether  the  desire  which 
prevails  includes  or  excludes  the  happiness  which  comes  from 
the  well-being  of  the  friend  whom  we  love,  or  from  the  relief 
of  the  sufferer  whom  we  pity.  The  desire,  as  such,  is  neither 
selfish  nor  unselfish  till  it  becomes  voluntary,  whatever  be  its 
object.  Moreover,  the  voluntary  purpose  will  fix  the  attention 
upon  the  object  chosen,  and  give  energy  and  play  to  the  desire 
which  it  stimulates. 

Leibnitz  recognizes  this  distinction  perhaps  over-sharply  in  contrasting 
the  love  of  concupiscence  and  the  love  of  benevolence  :  "Le 
Leibnitz  premier  nous  fait  en  vue  notre  plaisir,  et  le  second  celui  d'au- 

trui,  mais  comme  faisant  ou  plutot  constituant  le  notre,  car 
s'il  ne  rejaillissoit  pas  sur  nous  en  quelque  fafon,  nous  ne  pourrions  pas 
nous  y  interesser  puisqu'il  est  impossible,  quoiqu'un  dise,  d'etre  detache'  du 
bien  propre.  Et  voila  comment  il  faut  entendre  I'amour  desinteresse  ou 
non  mercenaire,  pour  en  bien  concevoir  la  noblesse,  et  pour  ne  point  tom- 
ber  cependant  dans  la  chimerique."  —  Nouv.  Essais,  liv.  ii.  chap.  xx. 
§§  4,  5. 

"Amare  autem  sive  diligere  est  felicitate  alterius  delectari  vel  quod 
eodem  redit  felicitatera  alienam  asciscere  in  suam  .  .  .  nnde  diffioilis 
nodus  solvitur  .  .  .  scilicet  quorum  felicitas  delectat  eorum  felicitas  in 
nostram  ingreditur  nam  qu?e  delectant  per  se  expetuntur."  —  De  Not, 
Juris  et  Justitia,  opera,  ed.  Erd.,  p.  118. 

Bishop  Butler  is  equally  explicit  in  expressing  the  same  opinion  (Ser- 

mon,  On  the  Love  of  our  Neif/hbor):  **  The  short  of  the  matter 

Butler.  ^®  ^^  more  than  this  :  happiness  consists  in  the  gratification 

of  certain  affections,  appetites,  passions,  with  objects  which 

are  by  nature  adapted  to  them.  .  .  .  Love  of  our  neighbor  is  one  of  these 

affections.    This,  considered  as  a  virtuous  principle,  is  gratified  by  a  con- 


§13.] 


MAN  A  MORAL  PERSON.  35 


sciousness  of  endeavoring  to  promote  the  good  of  others,  but,  considered 
as  a  natural  affection,  its  gratification  consists  in  the  actual  accomplish- 
ment of  this  endeavor.  Now,  indulgence  or  gratification  of  this  affec- 
tion, whether  in  that  consciousness  or  this  accomplishment,  has  the  same 
respect  to  interest  as  indulgence  of  any  other  affection  :  they  equally  pro- 
ceed or  do  not  proceed  from  self-love;  they  equally  include  or  equally 
exclude  this  principle." 

Dr.  Jonathan  Edwards  writes  to  the  same  effect:   "A  man  may  love 

himself  as  much  as  one  can,  and  may  be  in  the  exercise  of  a    ^    , 

,         .  ,       ,    -        .         Of  Jonathan 

high  degree  of  love  to  his  own  happmess,  ceaselessly  longmg   jj^j^ards. 

for  it,  and  yet  he  may  so  place  that  happiness,  that,  in  the 

very  act  of  seeking  it,  he  may  be  in  the  highest  exercise  of  love  to  God; 

as,  for  example,  when  the  happiness  that  he  longs  for  is  to  glorify  God,  or  to 

behold  his  glory,  or  to  hold  communion  with  htm."  —  Charity  and  its  Fruits, 

lect.  viii. 

Dr.  J.  W.  Alexander  also :  "  TVe  are  unable  to  think  of  any  one  as  a 

reasonable  human  being,  who  does  not,  in  all  possible  cir- 

,„  ^  1  Or  Dr.  J.  W. 

cumstances,   desire  his  own  welfare.     One  may  choose  a    Alexander. 

present  evil,  or  relinquish  a  present  good,  but  it  is  in  every 
case  with  the  hope  of  avoiding  "some  greater  evil,  or  obtaining  some 
greater  good."  —  Consolation,  New  York,  1856.  See  also  an  interesting  dis- 
cussion of  this  much  vexed  point  in  The  Thirty  Years'  Correspondence 
between  John  Jebb,  D.D.,  F.E.S.,  and  Alexander  Knox,  M.R.I. A.,  Phila- 
delphia, 1835,  letters  70,  71,  81,  and  82;  cf.  also  Appendix  to  the  Law  of 
Love,  by  Mark  Hopkins,  D.D.,  LL.D.,  revised  edition,  Correspondence 
between  Presidents  Hopkins  and  McCosh. 

§  13.  It  should  be  remembered,  however,  that  the  so-called 

desire  of  happiness  is  no  special  sensibility  with  its 

,  .   ,    .  ,.  .  ,       1  Desire  of 

attendant  desn*e  which  is  co-ordmate  with  the  appe-   happiness 

tites,  affections,  etc.,  and  superadded  to  them  all.   "o*  co-ordi- 

natenitiiany 

There  is  in  man  no  separate  desire  of  happiness,  of  the  special 
such  as  that  of  food,  or  society,  or  knowledge,  which  fp^j^^s^"*  ^'^ 
might  be  supposed  to  harmonize  or  come  in  conflict 
with  any  or  all  of  these  special  affections  and  impulses.  No 
man  ever  desired  happiness  in  the  general  or  the  abstract.  He 
may  desire  to  be  relieved  from  some  form  of  pain  or  ennui, 
experienced  or  imagined,  and  may  generalize  this  object  as 
some  undefined  form  of  good  ;  or  he  may  vaguely  conceive  some 
form  of  gratification  which  differs  from  the  enjoyment  or  pain 
of  the  moment,  and  of  which  kind  of  good  he  forms  only  an 


86  ELEMENTS  OF  MOBAL   SCIENCE.  [§  13. 

indefiuite  conception  :  but  he  can  never  catch  himself  or  his 
neighbor  thinking  of  happiness  in  the  abstract,  and  desiring  it, 
nor  as  setting  up  this  desire  as  an  end  at  which  to  aim,  or 
a  standard  by  which  to  measure  his  own  doings  or  achieve- 
ments. The  c\esire  of  happiness,  so  called,  is  simply  the  com- 
mon characteristic  of  several  special  impulses  towards  special 
objects.  The  subjective  satisfaction  which  all  of  these  objects 
impart,  and  which  is  common  to  them  all,  is  generalized  as 
happiness.  It  follows  that  such  a  desire  of  happiness,  being 
in  no  sense  co-ordinate  with  any  one  desire  or  with  many,  can 
never  conflict  with  any  nor  with  all ;  it  can  neither  hinder  nor 
aid  any  one  of  the  special  desires :  it  cannot,  therefore,  he  a 
reason  for  the  indulgence  of  any  such  desire. 

It  is  equally  true  that  no  single  desire  can  be  resolved  into  the 
No  sin  le  de-  ^^^^^'^  ^f  hapjmiess,  while  yet  it  is  and  must  be  true 
sire  can  be  that  every  individual  desire  must  be  moved  by  the 
the  (iesire"of  spccial  subjectivc  good  which  its  object  can  excite 
happiness.  or  producc  ;  and  every  particular  class  of  emotions 
has  a  particular  kind  of  good  which  prompts  the  desire  which 
naturally  and  necessarily  responds  to  it  by  springing  into  ac- 
tivity when  excited  by  its  object. 

The  desire  of  happiness  spoken  of  is,  however,  called  a 
national  desire,  because  rational  persons  are  alone 

Why  called  a  ,  ,        ^  ^         .  ,  .  ,  . 

raticrnai  Capable  of  formmg  the  concept  of  happmess,  or  can 

desire  by        compare  and  discriminate  between  different  kinds 

eminence. 

of  good,  or  propose  the  activities  or  objects  which 
terminate  in  one  or  other,  or  can  judge  between  the  acts  and 
objects  which  result  in  these  differing  subjective  states,  or  re- 
flect upon  their  own  agency  in  procuring,  or  failing  to  procure, 
these,results  to  themselves  or  others.  Even  the  brute  acts  from 
this  desire  for  good  as  truly  as  does  man  ;  although  through  the 
defect  of  reason  he  fails  to  rationalize  the  impulse  by  generaliz- 
ing its  object,  and  consequently  cannot  attain  to  the  intelligent, 
and  pre-eminently  to  the  self-conscious  or  reflective,  control  of 
his  actions  or  his  character.     The  desire  of  happiness  in  the 


§  13.]  MAN  A  MOBAL  PERSON.  37 

most  gifted  animal  is  a  blind  impulse,  which  is  cultivated  by 
training  from  without,  or  by  the  agency  of  a  limited  but  vivid 
memory,  and  directed  mainly  by  what  we  call  instinct.  In  man 
this  desire  becomes  an  ennobling  and  elevating  impulse  to  the 
actions,  the  habits,  and  character.  It  has  of  itself  no  moral 
quality ;  although  it  gives  intellectual  dignity  to  the  character, 
the  aims,  and  the  achievements. 

It  should  be  remembered,  however,  that  even  man,  with  all  his 
powers  of  abstraction  and  generalization,  never  proposes  happi- 
ness, as  such,  as  a  motive  to  a  single  feeling  or  action.  Though 
man  alone  can  form  the  conception  of  happiness,  yet  he  never 
proposes  happiness  to  himself  as  an  object  of  desire.  The 
nearest  approach  to  the  experience  of  such  a  desire  would  be 
the  wish  for  indefinite  relief  from  severe  and  unalloyed  pain. 
Such  a  relief  is  imagined  as  the  enjoyment  of  some  indefinite 
but  positive  good,  in  place  of  suffering,  which  is  mistaken  for 
happiness  in  the  abstract.  We  may  safely  say  that  desire,  so 
far  as  it  is  rational,  always  terminates  in  some  good,  which  is 
made  more  or  less  definite  by  the  memory  or  imagination. 


This  so-called  desire  of  happiness  is  misnamed  "self-love,"  and  under 
this  unfortunate  appellation  has  been  the  occasion  of  no  little 
confusion  of  thought,  and  active,  not  to  say  acrid,  recrimina-   ^^^^  ""^'  ,^ 
tion  (vide  Dugald  Stewart,  Outlines  of  Moral  Philosophy,    j^^g^j, 
part   ii.  chap.  i.  §  5  ;    Active   and  Moral   Powers,   book  ii. 
chap.  i.).   Not  a  few  writers  insist  that  self-love,  in  all  its  forms,  is  not  only 
morally  evil,  but  that  it  is  the  root  and  principle  of  all  moral  evil.    Jt  is 
obvious  that  the  affection  thus  condemned  must  be  a  voluntary  affection, 
and  cannot  be  synonymous  with  the  involuntary  and  necessary  desire 
of  happiness.    Dr.  Jonathan  Edwards  asserts  "  that  the  inordinateness  of 
self-love  does  not  consist  in  our  love  of  happiness  being  absolutely  con- 
sidered too  great  in  degree,  but  in  its  being  too  great  comj)aratively,  and 
in  placing  our  happiness  in  that  which  is  confined  to  self"  (Charity,  etc., 
lect.  viii.).    And  J.  W.  Alexander  says,  "  We  are  to  love  our  neighbors  as 
ourselves.    We  may,  then^  love  ourselves.    May  I  we  must  love  ourselves ; 
and  self-love  becomes  sin  only  when  it  becomes  selfishness  "  (.Consolation, 
etc.).    We  have  already  quoted  from  Butler  :  "  Now,  indulgence  or  grati- 
fication of  this  affection,  whether  in  that  consciousness  or  this^ccomplish- 
ment,  has  the  same  respect  to  interested  indulgence  as  any  other  affection : 


88  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL   SCIENCE.  [§  14. 

they  equally  proceed  or  do  not  proceed  from  self-love  ;  they  equally  in- 
clude or  exclude  this  principle."  The  phrases  contrasted  by  Edwards, 
viz.,  "too  great  comparatively"  and  "  too  great  in  degree,"  would  be  far 
more  felicitously  and  truly  expressed  by  "involuntarily  desired"  and 
"  voluntarily  preferred  "  (see  also  John  Brown  :  Essays  on  the  Character- 
istics, London,  1751 ;  essay  2,  on  The  Motives  to  Virtue). 


§  14.  The  sensibilities  and  their  attendant  desires  are  still 
Sensibilities  ^u^ther  distinguished  as  simple  or  original^  and  com- 
distin-  piQx  or  derived.     The  simple  are  those  which   are 

gaished  as  ,  i         /.   i     .  •      i      i 

simple  and  Capable  01  being  excited  alone,  under  their  appro- 
complex,  priate  conditions.  Whether  these  conditions  them- 
selves may  be  single  or  multiple  is  immaterial,  provided  the 
subjective  affection  can  occur  by  itself,  and  be  distinguished  in 
consciousness.  We  concern  ourselves  simply  and  solely  with 
the  soul's  subjective  condition,  inasmuch  as  this  experience 
must,  in  its  nature,  be  known  only  to  the  soul  itself,  and  is 
known  sufficiently  by  itself.  It  also  often  happens  that  a 
simple  emotion  requires  two  or  more  objects  in  some  special 
relation  to  one  another.  This  is  true  of  most,  if  not  all,  the 
sensibilities  which  are  sesthetical,  including  the  sense  of  melody 
and  harmony  in  sounds,  of  harmony  in  color,  of  grace  in 
motion,  etc.  On  the  other  hand,  a  complex  of  distinguishable 
objects  may  awaken  a  complex  of  blended  and  yet  distinguish- 
able emotions.  A  single  bright  color  pleases  simply,  and 
awakens  a  simple  emotion ;  a  painting  awakens  a  complex 
of  sensibilities  from  several  distinguishable  objects,  and  their 
relations  to  one  another,  —  from  tlie  colors  apart,  from  their 
gradation  and  harmony,  from  beauty  of  form,  correctness  of 
drawing,  and  from  skilfully  adjusted  composition ;  while  all 
these  elements  together  give  a  pleasant  and  consistent  expression 
of  thought  and  feeling.  Complex  emotions  are  also  said  to 
be  mingled  when  they  are  opposite  in  character;  some  being 
pleasing,  and  others  displeasing.  Most,  if  not  all,  of  the 
objects  which  address  our  sensibilities,  being  complex  in  their 
nature,  appeal  to  many  sensibilities.     Some  of  these  may  be 


§  15.]  MAN  A  MORAL  PEBSON.  39 

pleasant,  while  others  are  disagreeable.  A  complex  of  sounds 
in  many  tones  or  from  many  voices,  whether  these  tones  or 
voices  are  or  are  not  musical ;  of  colors  in  a  landscape  or  por- 
trait ;  of  surface  and  outline,  whether  in  a  drawing  or  picture ; 
of  tastes,  odors,  or  touches,  to  say  nothing  of  higher  experi- 
ences,—  are  examples  too  familiar  to  require  illustration. 

§  15.  The  feelings  and  accompanying  desires  are  again  dis- 
tinguished as  primary  or  original^  on  the  one  hand, 
and  secondary  or  artificial^  on  the  other.  Some  of  mary  and 
these  last  are  also  called  conventional  and  facti-  ^**^**"  ^^^' 
tious.  The  first  are  supposed  to  be  inherent  in  the  constitution 
of  every  human  being,  and  therefore  to  be  essential  to  human 
nature.  The  second  are  the  products  of  circumstances,  — 
those  which  are  common  and  normal  in  the  ordinary  conditions 
of  human  existence,  and  those  which  are  variable,  and  depend 
on  occasional  excitements.  The  parental  or  the  conjugal  affec- 
tions are  not  experienced  by  every  human  being ;  and  yet  both 
are  called  natural  affections  in  the  sense  that  they  are  invari- 
ably called  into  exercise  under  appropriate  circumstances,  and 
are  uniform  in  their  character  whenever  they  exist.  Other 
affections  and  tastes  or  passions,  as  for  rare  books,  autographs, 
old  china,  old  furniture,  old  brass,  bric-ct-brac,  etc.,  are  called 
factitious  or  artificial  because  the  circumstances  which  call  them 
forth  are  relatively  infrequent ;  and,  even  when  present,  their 
effects  are  not  constant  and  uniform,  but  depend  on  accidental 
or  conventional  conditions.  Whether  normal  or  artificial,  such 
affections  are  called  secondary,  because  in  point  of  time  they 
follow  the  primary,  and  depend  upon  them  for  their  origination, 
their  sustentation,  and  the  possibility  of  their  existence  and 
exercise. 

A  very  familiar  example  of  a  secondary  and  in  one  sense  an 
artificial  affection  is  the  love  of  money.     Man  need  The  love  of 
have   no   original   interest   in   the   material    called  "^o^ey. 
money,  whether  it  be  coin  or  paper ;  but  he  cannot  fail  to  have 
it  in  those  objects  which  money  will  procure.     So  soon,  how- 


40  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL  SCIENCE.  [§  15. 

ever,  as  he  learns  that  money  will  procure  these  objects,  and 
procure  them  without  delay,  and  that  it  is  indispensable  to  the 
enjoyment  and  possession  of  them,  he  learns  to  love  money 
with  what  seems  to  be  a  direct  and  original  affection,  —  an 
affection  which  for  energy  and  tenacity  seems  to  be  rooted 
most  deeply  in  the  nature  of  man,  and  yet  is  distinctly  trace- 
able to  roots  deeper  than  itself. 

Another  example  of  a  secondary  affection  is  the  pleasure  or 
Associated  disgust  which  is  felt  towards  any  object  or  event 
sensibilities,  which  has  bccome  intimately  associated  with  what 
is  naturally  agreeable  or  disagreeable.  An  article  of  dress 
may  be  naturally  convenient  or  inconvenient ;  a  form  of  speech 
may  be  pleasing  or  displeasing:  but  if  either  or  both  have 
been  so  connected  with  that  which  pleases  or  offends  us,  as 
constantly  and  vividly  to  call  up  the  attendant  emotion,  the 
associated  object  becomes  itself  offensive  or  agreeable,  and 
often  tenaciously  and  passionately. 

These  examples  indicate  the  two  classes  of  secondary  or  arti- 
Two  classes  filial  sensibilities,  and  the  grounds  and  history  of 
<>'•  each.     The  first  class  are  founded  on  the  relation 

of  cause  to  effect,  involving  that  of  means  and  ends ;  the  end 
or  effect  being  desired  by  a  natural,  and  the  means  or  cause 
by  a  secondary,  affection.  The  second  class  are  founded  on 
the  so-called  association  of  ideas,  by  the  operation  of  which  a 
close  and  frequent  conjunction  of  two  objects  causes  the  one 
to  be  desired  or  rejected  on  account  of  its  companion.  Those 
philosophers  who  resolve  the  relation  of  cause  and  effect  into 
that  of  antecedence  or  co-existence,  and  our  belief  of  its  con- 
stancy and  universality  into  oft-repeated  associations,  must 
necessarily  unite  the  two  classes  into  one,  and  explain  all  the 
so-called  secondary  desires  by  the  association  of  ideas.  The 
ethical  theories  of  the  associationalists  will  require  special 
attention,  inasmuch  as  they  resolve  all  the  moral  relations 
and  emotions  into  the  operation  of  these  laws  (cf.  §§      ). 

Many  of  the  secondary  desires  become  the  strongest  and  the 


§  15.]  MAN  A  MOBAL  PEBSON.  41 

most  conspicuous  impulses  of  our  nature.  Such  are  the  love 
of  money  and  fashion,  which  have  been  referred  to. 
Not  infrequently  these  affections  become  so  power-  the  secondary 
ful  and  insidious  as  to  defeat  the  very  ends  for 
which  they  exist,  and  to  displace  the  primary  impulses  which 
originally  stimulated  and  sustained  them.  The  miser  begins  by 
loving  money  because  he  desires  the  good  which  money  alone 
will  procure,  but  ends  with  loving  money  of  itself  with  such  ex- 
clusive energy  as  to  sacrifice  to  this  passion  every  good  which 
makes  money  desirable  or  valuable.  Devotion  to  some  incon- 
venient and  unhealthy  fashion  impels  men  and  women  to  desire 
indulgences  which  are  incompatible  with  many  of  the  gratifi- 
cations which  fashion  itself  counts  of  the  highest  value. 

Under  the  complex  relations  of  human  existence,  especially 
in   a   highly   artificial   civilization,   the   number  of  ^  . 

o     J  ^         Their  num- 

secondary  sensibilities  and  desires  is  greatly  in-  her  and  com- 
creased,  and  many  of  the  factitious  displace  and  p^®^^*^'* 
counteract  those  which  are  acknowledged  to  be  primary  and 
natural.  Nothing  more  strikingly  illustrates  the  resources 
and  the  complex  character  of  man's  nature  than  its  capacity  to 
develop  these  artificial  likings  and  dislikings,  and  the  impor- 
tance which  they  assume  as  the  conditions  of  human  happiness. 
The  analysis  of  some  of  the  most  familiar  and  strongest  of 
human  affections,  and  the  estimate  of  their  relative  energy  as 
springs  of  man's  conduct,  become  for  this  reason  very  diflScult. 
In  a  practical  way  men  are  often  convinced  of  this  truth  when 
they  find  it  by  no  means  easy  to  discover  the  real  impulses 
which  originate  and  control  their  own  actions.  The  most 
honest  of  men  are  frequently  puzzled  to  trace  to  its  originating 
and  controlling  element  some  overmastering  passion  which  they 
desire  to  overcome. 

We  are  also  embarrassed  with  special  difficulties  when 
the  feelings  are  analyzed  for  speculative  ends,  because  of  the 
variety  of  constituents  which  are  or  may  be  concerned  in  the 
product,  and  the  difficulty  of  estimating  the  presence  and  force 


42  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL   SCIENCE.  [§  15. 

of  the  voluntary  element.  This  difficulty  is  greatly  increased 
because  the  external  manifestations  or  indication?  of  the  feel- 
ings within  are  so  easily  disguised,  and  so  hard  to  be  tested  by 
decisive  experiments  or  unvaried  rules.  But,  however  diverse 
these  theories  may  be  in  their  conclusions,  they  have  one  com- 
mon aim,  —  they  propose  a  single  class  of  inquiries  ;  viz..  What 
are  the  simple  or  primary  elements  into  which  may  be  resolved 
the  complex  and  derived  capacities  and  experiences  which  we  call 
the  emotional  nature  and  its  affections^  including  the  capacities 
and  experiences  which  are  known  as  moral  f  They  imply,  if 
they  do  not  re-assert,  the  position  already  taken,  that  Moral 
Science  is  dependent  on,  because  it  is  largely  resolved  into,  a 
correct  Psychology.  They  show  that  ethical  science  is  but 
another  name  for  an  exact  and  comprehensive  analysis  of  psy- 
chological phenomena,  and  the  explanation  and  determination 
of  these  phenomena  by  means  of  ultimate  philosophical  rela- 
tions or  metaphysical  intuitions. 


§16.]  THE  SENSIBILITIES  CLASSIFIED.  43 


^UNIVEESIT 


kiiFo-a^ 


CHAPTER    11. 

THE    SENSIBILITIES   CLASSIFIED. 

§  16.  If  it  is  not  easy  to  analyze  the  sensibilities  into  their 
original  and  simplest  elements,  it  follows  that  it  is 
not  easy  to  classify  them.  Every  synthesis  of  ele-  not  easily 
ments  as  similar  supposes  that  these  elements  are  ^  *^^^  ^  * 
more  or  less  clearly  distinguishable.  Every  arrangement  of 
these  elements  into  groups  that  are  higher  or  lower  supposes  a 
previous  discrimination  of  the  same  as  more  or  less  general  in 
their  manifestation  through  phenomena.  In  other  words,  every 
correct  and  exhaustive  classification  follows  a  sharp  and  com- 
prehensive analysis.  As  the  experiences  are  subjective  (i.e., 
as  they  pertain  to  those  internal  experiences  which  are  con- 
sciously known) ,  it  might  seem  that  they  should  be  separated 
and  constructed  according  to  the  differences  or  similarities  which 
are  experienced  in  and  discerned  by  consciousness.  Inasmuch, 
however,  as  these  experiences  are  dependent  upon  their  excit- 
ing objects,  and  these  objects  are  sharply  presented  to  the  intel- 
lect, and  inasmuch  as  we  know  by  observation  and  conclude  by 
analogy  that  different  objects  cause  or  occasion  different  expe- 
riences, we  discriminate  and  unite  them  according  to  the  objects 
which  conditionate  them.  Both  these  elements,  therefore  (viz., 
the  subjective  and  objective),  control  our  classification,  and 
determine  its  nomenclature.  For  the  reasons  given,  however, 
the  object  or  conditionating  occasion  is  prominent  in  deciding 


44  ELEMENTS  OF  MOBAL   SCIENCE.  [§  17. 

the  classification  and  terminology  of  the  sensibilities  and  the 
will. 

The  following  scheme  is  proposed :  the  animal  or  sensuous,  includ- 
p  ing  the  instinctive  ;  the  intellectual ;  the  imaginative  and- 

scheme  of  aesthetic  ;  the  personal,  involving  the  love  of  power  and 
classiflcation.  superiority,  of  achievement  and  property;  the  social,  both 
Drs.  Reid  and  sympathetic  and  antipathetic ;  the  reflex,  including  the 
Stewart.  prudential  and  moral.     Dr.  Thomas  Reid  recognizes  the 

mechanical,  animal,  and  rational  (Essays  on  the  Active  Powers,  ess.  iii. 
part  1.  chap,  i.) ;  Dugald  Stewart,  the  instinctive  or  implanted  propen- 
sities, including  the  appetites,  the  desires,  and  the  affections;  the  rational 
and  governing  principles,  including  self-love  and  the  moral  faculty  (Active 
and  Moral  Powers,  Introduction).    Sir  William  Hamilton  divides  the  sen- 
sibilities into  the  corporeal  and  mental.    The  corporeal  are 
h'  "It    *™      again  divided  into  two  which  accompany  the  special  and  the 
common  sensations.    The  mental  are  again  subdivided  into 
the  contemplative  and  the  practical.    The  contemplative  are  those  impel- 
ling respectively  to  the  lower  and  the  higher  intellectual  activities.    The 
practical  tend  to  self-preservation,  the  enjoyment  of  existence,  the  pres- 
ervation of  the  species,  to  perfection  and  development  and  the  moral  law 
(Lectures  on  Metaphysics,  lect.  xlv.,  xlvi.).    Dr.  Thomas  C.  Upham  divides 
the  sensibilities  into  the  natural   or  pathematic,  and  the 

J^'wT  '*^™**  moral.  The  natural  are  subdivided  into  the  emotions  and 
C.  Upham. 

desires  ;  the  desires  again  being  subdivided  into  the  appe- 
tites, the  propensities,  and  the  affections.  The  propensities  are  to  self- 
preservation,  curiosity,  imitativeness,  esteem,  property,  power,  vivacity, 
society,  resentment,  benevolence,  and  humanity,  to  happiness  (i.e.,  self- 
love),  to  society.  The  affections  are  subdivided  into  resentment,  benevo- 
lence in  the  form  of  domestic  affections,  humanity,  patriotism,  pity, 
gratitude,  love  to  God  (Mental  Philosophy,  vol.  ii..  Introduction,  chap.  ii.). 

Dr.  W.  "VVhewell  recognizes  the  apjwtites,  the  affections  tend- 
_„  *      „  ing  to  persons,  the  mental  desires  to  abstractions  (as  safety, 

property,  family  and  civil  society,  a  common  understanding, 
superiority)  and  to  knowledge  ;  the  moral  sentiments  and  the  reflex 
sentiments  as  of  being  loved,  and  self-approval  (Elements  of  Morality, 
Introduction,  chap.  ii.). 

The  sensibiii-  §  17.  The  sensibilities  and  their  attendant  desires 
th"  ^^"^'j^  differ  in  respect  to  the  quality  or  the  kind  of  good, 
qnaiityofthe  and  respectively  of  the  evil,  which  they  condition 
they  con-*'  ^^  impart.  We  speak  of  the  sensibilities  as  natural 
dition.  only,    and   not   at   all   of   them   as   voluntary   and 

moral.     We  speali  of  the  natural  exercise  of  any  sensibilities 


§17.]  THE  SENSIBILITIES  CLASSIFIED.  45 

as  this  is  or  might  be  known  in  conscious  experience,  and 
judged  by  that  comparison  and  discrimination  which  are  implied 
in  the  exercise  of  consciousness  by  man  as  a  rational  being. 
That  our  experiences  of  sensitive  good  and  evil  differ  in  iiiten- 
sity  or  degree  is  conceded  by  all.  The  unconscious  testimony  of 
human  language,  and  the  ready  assent  of  the  human  race,  seem 
to  coincide  in  respect  to  this  point.  That  one  experience  of 
heat  or  odor,  of  surprise  or  anger,  of  love  or  hatred,  is  more 
energetic  than  another,  all  men  believe,  and  no  man  will  deny  ; 
but  that  the  gratification  of  the  different  sensibilities  also  differs 
in  kind,  when  compared,  so  that  one  would  be  pronounced  natu- 
rally better  than  another,  irrespectively  of  any  moral  relations, 
is  by  no  means  universally  conceded  by  philosophers.  Thus 
Paley  writes :  "  I  will  omit  much  useless  declama-  yiewsof 
tion  on  the  dignity  and  capacity  of  our  nature  ;  the  Pai^y* 
superiority  of  the  soul  to  the  body,  of  the  rational  to  the  ani- 
mal part  of  our  constitution ;  upon  the  worthiness,  refinement, 
and  delicacy  of  some  satisfactions,  or  the  meanness,  grossness, 
and  sensuality  of  others,  —  because  I  hold  that  pleasures  differ 
in  nothing  but  in  continuance  and  intensity "  {Moral  and 
Political  P1iilosoj)liy^  book  i.  chap.  vi.).  Jeremy  Bentham 
pithily  says,  "Quantity  of  pleasure  being  equal,  jeremy 
pushpin  is  as  good  as  poetry,"  and  holds  that  the  Be»than»- 
value  of  a  pleasure  depends  on  its  intensity,  duration,  cer- 
tainty, propinquity,  purity  (i.e.,  freedom  from  being  followed 
by  pain),  security,  and  extent  {Morals  and  Legislation^  i.  §  8). 
On  the  other  hand,  John  Stuart  Mill  asserts,  "It  john  Stuart 
would  be  absurd,  that  while,  in  estimating  all  other  Mill, 
things,  quality  is  considered  as  well  as  quantity,  the  estima- 
tion of  pleasure  should  be  supposed  to  depend  on  quantity 
alone"  {Utilitarianism^  chap.  ii.).  The  criterion,  or  proof, 
of  this  assertion,  he  finds  in  the  general  consent  of  mankind : 
"  Of  two  pleasures,  if  there  be  one  to  which  all,  or  almost  all, 
who  have  experience  of  both  give  a  decided  preference,  irre- 
spective of  any  feeling  of  moral  obligation  to  prefer  it,  that  is 


46  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL  SCIENCE.  [§  17. 

the  most  desirable  pleasure  "  (/cZ).^  It  may  not  be  easy  to  fix 
upon  the  finer  divisions  of  a  scale  according  to  which  the  differ- 
ent sensibilities  of  the  same  general  class  are  ranked  ;  but  it  will 
be  generally  conceded,  that  bodily  pleasures  are  inferior  to  the 
intellectual,  social,  and  sympathetic,  and  that,  when  two  of  these 
species  of  satisfaction  are  brought  into  competition,  one  is  dis- 
cerned to  be  a  higher  and  better  good  than  the  other.  This 
difference  in  quality  accounts  for  the  different  appellations 
which  are  applied  to  the  gratifications  of  the  several  susceptibili- 
ties of  our  nature.  The  terms  ' '  pleasure, "  ' '  enjoyment, * '  "  hap- 
piness," and  "blessedness,"  all  of  which  are  in  actual  and 
constant  use,  suggest  and  signify  a  different  natural  value  in  the 
sensations  and  emotions ;  which  value  pertains  to  the  original 
susceptibilities,  apart  from  the  admixture  of  any  voluntary 
activity,  or  the  moral  element  in  any  or  in  all. 

For  philosophical  uses,  it  is  not  only  desirable,  but  necessary, 
No  sin  le  ^^  selcct  somc  term  which  shall  be  broad  enough  to 
term  for  covcr  all  these  kinds  and  forms  of  subjective  good, 
subjective  tTom  the  highest  to  the  lowest.  The  needs  and 
good.  usgg  of   common  life  provide  no  such   term.     We 

cannot  invent,  and  force  into  use,  a  technical  appellation,  as  in 
the  artificial  nomenclature  of  chemistry  and  geology,  which 
should  be  divested  of  the  associations  or  sanctions  derived  from 
the  uses  of  common  life,  for  the  reason  that  the  distinctions  and 


1  J.  Martineau,  Miscellanies,  Am.  ed.,  vol.  ii.  pp.  17,  18;  Review  of 
WJieweU's  Morality.  Cf .  comments  on  the  same ;  Sidgwick,  Methods  of  Ethics, 
"book  iii.  chap.  xii.  See  also  Lotze,  Mikrokosmns,  5tes  Buch,  5tes  Kapi- 
tel.  Against  the  views  expressed  by  Martineau,  Professor  Sidgwick  saj's 
that  it  is  impossible  in  many  cases  to  distinguish  between  one  grati- 
fied sensibility  and  another  as  higher  and  lower.  We  reply,  without  dis- 
cussing the  general  question,  In  some  cases  it  is  possible,  and  it  is  only 
when  such  discrimination  is  possible  that  moral  obligation  arises.  This 
happens  only  when  the  question  of  voluntary  preference  and  control  pre- 
sents itself  for  decision  between  two  classes  of  affections  or  emotions;  as 
the  self-terminating  and  the  self-sacrificing,  or  the  sensual  as  contrasted 
with  the  intellectual  and  active. 


§  17.]  THE  SENSIBILITIES  CLASSIFIED.  47 

nomenclature  of  Ethics  are  designed  for  universal  and  popular 
use.     They  neither  can  nor  ought  to  be  limited  to  the  termi- 
nology of  the  schools.     On  the  other  hand,  to  attempt  to  gen- 
eralize and  broaden  any  specific  term  offends  the  associations 
and  usages  which  have  attached  a  limited  and  special  significa- 
tion to  every  appellation.    Accordingly,  "pleasure" 
has  always  been  thought  too  limited  9,nd  low  a  term  gatMaction* 
to  apply  to  the  gratification  of  the  higher  sensibili-  blessedness 
ties.    ' '  Blessedness ' '  and  ' '  happiness, ' '  even,  are  too  „ess,  good 
elevated  to  designate  the  gratification  of  any  of  the  ^^^  ^^^' 
lower  appetites.    ' '  Enjoyment ' '  and  ' '  satisfaction,' ' 
though  freely  used  of  the  lower  and  intermediate,  are  rejected  as 
unsuitable  to  the  highest.     "Good"  and  "well-being"  are  as 
free  from  objection  as  any  terms :   both  these,  however,  are 
as  often  applied  to  the  causes  or  occasions  of  good  as  to  their 
eflfects  in  the  inward  experience,  and  hence  frequent  and  serious 
ambiguities  arise  (cf.  §      ). 

And  yet  it  is  necessary  to  find  some  term  which  may  be 
applied  to  all,  from  the  highest  to  the  lowest,  and  be  limite'd,  if 
possible,  to  the  psychical  or  subjective  element.  Many,  if  not 
most,  of  the  objections  urged  against  the  doctrine  that  the  exer-. 
cise  of  every  sensibility  gives  some  form  or  species  of  satisfac-^ 
tion,  find  their  chief  plausibility  in  the  tenacious  associations  by 
which  these  terms  are  indissolubly  connected  with  gratifications 
of  a  lower  quality  or  grade,  or  with  such  as  the  will  degrades 
to  the  service  of  selfishness  or  appetite. 

We  repeat,  also,  the  truth,  that  what  is  true  of  the  appella- 
tions for  these  subjective  experiences  is  true  of  their  objective 
conditions  or  causes.  We  find  it  difficult  to  select  terms  suflS- 
ciently  generic  to  designate  all  of  these,  without  suggesting 
associations  that  are  more  or  less  closely  connected  with  single 
classes  of  objects.  And  yet  in  general,  as  we  say  of  a  gratified 
sensibility  that  it  is  good,  so  we  say  of  the  cause  or  condition 
of  its  gratification,  that  it  is  a  good.  But  it  is  not  with  the 
same  associations,  or  in  the  same  meaning,  that  we  call  food  or 


48  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL   SCIENCE.  [§  17. 

a  fortune  a  good,  as  we  speak  of  knowledge  or  society  as  a 
good,  or  say  of  the  friend  whom  we  love  with  disinterested 
devotion,  or  the  God  whom  we  supremely  adore,  that  each  is 
our  good ;  and  yet  at  times  we  do  not  hesitate  to  designate 
each  of  these  blessings,  in  a  sense,  as  our  supreme  Good. 

We  very  properly  distinguish  between  "  worth "  and  "  value,"  using 
"  worth  "  to  designate  that  object  which  is  ultimate  and  also 

1  tint  '  ^igliGst  in  the  quality  of  its  subjective  good,  as  the  good  which 
is  experienced  in  a  disinterested  act  or  emotion,  or  which  is 
found  in  the  highest  moral  and  personal  qualities.  "  Value  "  ordinarily 
designates  some  end  or  use  to  which  an  object  may  be  applied.  Utility, 
by  universal  and  inveterate  usage,  is  limited  to  those  objects  or  conditions 
of  good  which  are  means  to  ends  ;  the  ends  being  also,  more  frequently, 
neither  final  nor  ultimate,  but  subordinated  to  some  higher  end.  No  action, 
or  object,  or  emotion,  is  called  useful  which  is  not  subordinated  to  some- 
thing other  than  itself.  For  this  reason,  utility  should  never  be  applied 
to  any  agent  which  acts  directly  upon  any  capacity  for  a  simple  or  original 
feeling.  We  cannot  speak  of  an  object  which  we  directly  enjoy  (as  the 
food  which  we  taste,  or  the  friend  whom  we  love)  as  \iseful  for  enjoy- 
ment or  happiness.  Utility  is  reserved  exclusively  for  those  relations 
which  are  secondary  and  indirect,  and  usually  are  objective  and  external 
rather  than  subjective  and  psychical.  With  still  less  propriety  can  an 
individual  sensibility  be  said  to  be  useful  with  respect  to  that  common  qual- 
ity, as  happiness,  which  is  characteristic  of  every  individual  or  subordinate 
species  of  its  class.  The  quality  or  capacity  common  to  every  specific  sen- 
sibility of  giving  pleasure  or  pain  cannot  be  regarded  as  a  tendency  in  that 
sensibility  towards  the  production  of  this  pleasure  or  pain.  The  so-called 
"  tendency  "  is  another  term  for  the  fitness  or  adaptation  of  a  sensibility  to 
its  supi>osed  design  or  end,  and  cannot  be  called  its  utility.  The  relation 
of  fitness  or  adaptation  is  real  and  important;  but  "utility"  is  not  the 
proper  term  by  which  to  designate  it,  for  the  reasons  already  given.i 

1  And  yet  Dr.  Dwight,  following  Paley,  does  not  hesitate  to  define 
*^ utility  as  a  tendency  to  produce  happiness"  (Theolor/y,  sermon  xcix.); 
but  he  would  doubtless  distinguish  the  voluntary  sensibility  from  the  in- 
voluntary, and  limit  the  designation  of  virtuous  to  the  former  (cf.  Paley, 
Moral  and  Political  Philosophy,  book  ii.  chap,  vi.;  Jeremy  Bentham,  Prin- 
ciples of  Morals  and  Legislation,  i.  §  8  ;  J.  S.  Mill  on  Utilitarianism,  chap.  ii.). 
The  term  "  utility"  has  been  used  in  the  senses  criticised  above,  by  both 
the  friends  and  foes  of  very  diverse  systems,  and  become  by  its  motley 
appendages  a  veritable  scarecroiv  in  the  gardens  of  philosophy  and  the- 
ology, at  which  every  passer-by  throws  a  missile. 


§18.]  THE  SENSIBILITIES   CLASSIFIED.  49 

§  18.  Following  the  analysis  already  given  of  the  sensibilities 
into  feelings  and  desires,  we  observe  that  the  sensi-  ^j^^  sensibUi- 
bilities,  as  feelings,  are  simply  passive.     So  long  as  ties,  as  emo- 

,  .      .  ,.  .  .  ,  T  tions,  are 

the  exciting  object  or  condition  is  present  and  at-   simply  pas- 
tended  to,  the  appropriate  feeling  must  necessarily  ^^^®* 
be  experienced.     Any  object  and  every  object  which  is  fitted 
to  excite  the  feelings  of  pleasure  or  pain  must  excite  those 
feelings  so  long  as  it  is  confronted  with  or  apprehended  by  the 
sensitive  soul.     The  soul,  as  pure  sensibility,  can  never  with- 
hold the  appropriate   emotion,  but  finds   itself   completely  in 
the  power,  and,  so  to  speak,  at  the  mercy,  of  the  objects  with 
which  it  comes  in  contact.     For  the  completeness  of 
this  contact  the  attention  needs,  indeed,  to  be  con-  act  under 
centrated  and  sustained.     If  this  be  diverted,  the  <'«'■*»»«  ^o**- 

ditions. 

object  is  as  though  it  were  not,  in  respect  to  its  power 
to  excite  and  impel.    But  given  the  present  object  and  the  atten- 
tive soul,  and  the  soul  must  necessarily  feel,  and  be  impelled  to 
action.     An  apparent  exception  to  this  rule  is  fur- 

.  ,      _  .       ,  ,  .,.,..  rr,.  T  -.    Apparent  ex- 

nished  in  the  corporeal  sensibilities.     These  depend  ceptions  in 
on   two   factors  or  conditions,  —  the   tone   of   the  ^^*^]^^  ®*" 

perience. 

bodily  organism,  and  the  energy  of  the  material  ex- 
citant or  object.  The  material  organism,  as  such,  is  limited  in 
its  capacities  to  respond  to  the  physiological  excitant.  More- 
over, as  animated  by  the  sensitive  soul,  it  is  also  limited  in  its 
capacities  for  pleasure  or  pain.  Food  does  not  continue  to  please 
when  satiety  has  displaced  hunger.  Light  wearies  or  offends 
the  eye  when  out  of  due  proportion  to  its  capacity  to  re-act,  or 
when  either  the  eye  or  the  soul  is  wearied  by  prolonged  excite- 
ment. Even  when  the  enjoyment  is  purely  psychical,  the  soul's 
capacity  for  emotion  may  be  weakened  by  physiological  condi- 
tions. These  apparent  exceptions  confirm,  rather  than  weaken, 
our  confidence  in  the  general  law  that  the  soul,  in  its  capacities 
to  feel,  is  simply  passive  under  the  stimulus  of  its  exciting 
conditions.  Its  power  to  avoid  or  control  feeling  lies  in  another 
power  than  the  capacity  for  simple  feeling. 


50  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL   SCIENCE.  [§  19. 

By  whatever  agency  the  avoidance  or  control  of  the  sensibili- 
Dependent  ^^^s  is  effected,  it  is  accomplished  proximately  by 
on  attention,  withdrawing  the  attention  from  the  objects  which 
excite  them  ;  and  this  is  achieved  by  fixing  the  attention  on  other 
objects^  and  yielding  the  soul  to  their  power.  The  feelings  which 
are  natural  to  man,  whether  corporeal  or  psychical,  must  be 
aroused,  so  long  as  the  objects  which  solicit  them  are  attended 
to.  It  is  not  in  human  nature  to  avoid  or  resist  any  feeling  in 
the  presence  of  its  exciting  object.  The  best  of  men  hold  in 
their  very  constitution  natural  elements  which  by  voluntary  per- 
version or  excess  become  the  most  degrading  of  appetites  and 
the  most  hateful  of  passions.  "The  heart  of  man,"  says  Sir 
Thomas  Brown  in  the  ''Religio  Medici,"  "is  the  place  the  devils 
dwell  in.  I  feel  sometimes  a  hell  within  myself.  Lucifer  keeps 
his  court  in  my  breast.     Legion  is  roused  in  me." 

The  truth  that  our  emotions  are  passive  is  attested  by  the 
tendency  to  call  them  "passions."  This  appellation  is  justified 
whenever  they  are  excited  or  indulged  with  unusual  strength  or 
violence.  The  entire  class,  in  the  nomenclature  of  some  phi- 
losophers, are  designated  as  passive  or  pathematic  affections. 

§  19.  The  capacity  for  the  strength  or  energy  of  any  feeling 
Effect  of  i^  increased  by  repetition.  We  speak  here  of  the 
repetition.  natural  capacity  to  enjoy  or  suffer,  and  not  at  all  of 
the  acquired  dexterity  .to  avoid  or  control  either  gladness  or 
pain  by  voluntary  activity.  The  two  may  conspire  and  act  to- 
gether, but  they  may  also  be  distinguished.  Apart  from  the 
will  and  what  it  can  do,  the  more  a  man  exercises  a  sensibility 
as  such,  the  more  sensitive  does  it  become  to  its  exciting  cause, 
and  the  larger  is  its  capacity  for  subsequent  energy  of  action. 
The  experience  which  every  man  has  of  himself,  and  the  obser- 
vation which  he  takes  of  other  men,  confirm  this  assertion.  It 
certainly  will  not  be  denied  of  any  experience  which  is  purely 
psychical.  The  soul  given  to  the  pleasures  of  knowledge,  so- 
ciety, taste,  affection,  duty,  and  religion,  finds  its  capacity  and 
its  sensitiveness  for  each  to  increase   by   use   and  repetition. 


§19.]  THE  SENSIBILITIES  CLASSIFIED.  51 

Similarly  the  capacities  of  pleasure  from  hate,  envy,  selfishness, 
and  revenge,  are  enlarged  by  habit,  however  much  they  may  be 
counterbalanced  and  repressed  by  the  pains  and  stings  which 
sometimes  re-act  with  proportionate  energy. 

To  this  general  law  there  are  two  apparent  exceptions :  the 
bodily  appetites,  by  repeated  indulgence,  become  weaker  in  their 
capacity  to  give  pleasure  ;  and  novel  objects  are  enjoyed  with  a 
special  zest,  which  is  diminished  after  the  occasions  or  objects 
have  ceased  to  be  new. 

Of  the  first  it  is  enough  to  say  that  the  repeated  gratification 
of  a  bodily  appetite  weakens  the  sensitiveness  of  ^ 

^       '^  ^  Exception, 

the  bodily  organism,  and   consequently  diminishes  the  bodily 

the  energy  of  the  sensation  ;  of  the  second,  that  the  ^pp®**  ®^* 

heightened,  and  in  its  very  nature  the  temporary,  enjoyment 

which  comes  from  a  novel  or  contrasted  experience,  cannot,  in 

the  nature  of   the  case,  be  sustained  when  its  occasion  has 

ceased,  i.e.,  when  the  zest  from  contrast  has  become  impossible 

by  repetition. 

Another  exception   might  be  urged,  that,  by   the   passive 

familiarity  with  objects  or  scenes  that  are  fitted  to 

*^  •'  Effect  of  fa- 

excite  feeling,  the  soul  often  seems  comparatively  miiiarity,  the 

insensible  to  their  influence ;  as  the  surgeon  to  the  ^^^^^^^  *^* 

'  °  surgeon. 

pain  he  gives,  or  as  the  soldier  is  hardened  and  not 
softened  by  the  agony  and  death  with  which  he  is  conversant, 
and  the  miser  becomes  more  unfeeling  the  more  familiar  he 
is  with  the  cries  and  tears  which  his  cruel  selfishness  extorts. 
Phenomena  of  this  kind  are  in  no  sense  exceptions  to  our  prin- 
ciple :  they  rather  confirm  it.  Such  phenomena  are  explicable 
only  as  we  recognize  the  presence  or  absence  of  the  voluntary 
element.  The  surgeon,  the  soldier,  and  miser  do  not  feel, 
because  by  acts  of  will,  so  often  repeated  as  to  have  formed 
spontaneous  habits,  they  have  learned  gradually  yet  completely 
to  withdraw  the  attention  from  the  objects  which  would  other- 
wise move  the  sensibilities.  The  apparent  insensibility  of  either 
may  often  be,  often  it  is  not,  real,  being  only  the  result  of  a 


62  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL   SCIENCE.  [§  10. 

practised  self-command  in  the  art  of  controlling  and  regulating 
the  attention.  That  the  sensibility  of  the  surgeon  is  not  in- 
durated by  familiarity  with  suffering,  is  proved  by  the  unques- 
tioned fact  that  the  practice  of  his  profession  may,  and  often 
does,  form  him  into  one  of  the  most  tender-hearted  and  sympa- 
thetic of  men ;  as  also,  that,  when  he  is  simply  a  looker-on 
at  a  surgical  operation  in  which  his  personal  activity  is  not 
required,  he  is  as  quickly  unmanned  as  any  other  bystander. 
The  soldier  is  no  more  unfeeling  than  any  other  man,  in  scenes 
in  which  he  can  exert  no  activity.  Before  the  conflict  begins,  it 
is  only  as  he  can  occupy  or  divert  his  attention,  that  he  can 
bring  himself  to  stand  quietly  and  await  his  orders.  More  than 
one  sturdy  oflScer  has  said  to  his  trembling  limbs,  on  going  into 
action,  ''You  would  tremble  more  if  you  knew  where  I  am  about 
to  carry  you."  The  miser  even,  if  he  can  be  approached  at  an 
unguarded  point,  is  open  to  the  movings  of  humanity. 

Bishop  Butler  {Analogy,  i.  chap,  v.)  has  recognized  and  enforced  the 

«  X,  ,  ^.  distinction  between  what  he  terms  "  the  active  and  passive 
Butler's  dis-  ^ 

tinction  be-      habits,"  and  has  called  attention  to  the  important  law  by 

tween  active  which  mere  emotions,  when  they  do  not  lead  to  action, 
and  passive  become  weaker  by  repetition,  while  those  feelings  which  are 
expressed  in  words  and  acts,  and  so  become  active  habits, 
become  stronger  in  their  impulsive  force.  At  first  it  might  seem  that  this 
principle  conflicts  with  the  general  law  that  the  repetition  of  a  sensibility 
augments,  or  tends  to  augment,  its  strength  and  impulsive  energy.  On  sec- 
ond thought  it  will  be  seen  that  what  Butler  calls  the  "  active  habits  "  are 
habits  of  the  will,  or,  more  exactly,  habits  of  the  intellect  and  sensibility 
which  are  formed  by  the  will.  So  far  as  any  emotional  power  is  considered 
apart  from  the  voluntary,  its  capacity  for  feeling,  as  such,  grows  relatively 
stronger  by  repetition,  and  comparatively  weaker  by  disuse.  The  desire, 
also  in  obedience  to  the  law  already  recognized,  must  also  respond  to  each 
excitement  of  emotion,  whether  it  be  pleasant  or  painful,  and  in  proportion 
to  the  energy  of  the  emotion.  In  the  case  of  the  bodily  appetites,  while  the 
capacity  for  sensuous  gratification  is  weakened  and  limited  by  indulgence, 
and  emphatically  by  habitual  excess,  the  desire  may  be  stimulated  by  such 
recollections  of  past  enjoyments  as  the  more  limited  capacities  of  the 
present  cannot  give,  inducing  inevitable  disappointment  and  disgust  at  the 
contrast  between  the  vividness  of  pleasures  as  remembered  or  imagined, 
and  the  feebleness  of  those  which  are  experienced.    To  this  must  be  added 


§20.]  THE  SENSIBILITIES  CLASSIFIED.  53 

the  chagrin  and  discomfort  which  attend  the  effort  of  supplementing  what 
fails  in  the  quality  of  enjoyment  by  excess  in  quantity,  or  by  artificial, 
unnatural,  and,  in  the  worst  sense,  brutal  excitement.  Hence  the  ennui 
and  horrors  of  the  drunkard  and  the  debauchee,  apart  from  moral  self- 
condemnation  and  social  reproach. 

§  20.  The  sensibilities  have  an  active  as  well  as  a  passive 
side.     While  feelinoj,  as  feelinof,  is  only  passive,  de-  „     .  .,.  , 

°'  *'  "^   '^  '  Sensibilities 

sire  is  active  or  act- impelling.  Its  first  and  direct  active,  or  act- 
impulse  is  to  the  satisfaction  of  which  the  sensibili-  ™**^  *"^* 
ties,  as  feelings,  are  the  conditions ;  the  second,  to  the  objects 
which  conditionate  this  gratification ;  while  the  third  impels  to 
the  psychical  or  bodily  action  which  brings  both  the  object  and 
the  satisfaction  within  the  possession  of  the  soul. 

What  we  call  activity  is  wide  in  its  variety  of  meaning,  and 
extent  of  application.  It  includes  a  very  extensive 
range  of  phenomena,  physical  and  psychical.  The  used  in  a 
singular  and  unexplained  material  property  called  ^^**.^^  ^  ^' 
elasticity  impels  material  particles  or  masses  to  re- 
action ;  i.e.,  to  motion  in  a  direction  contrary  to  that  in  which 
either  are  acted  upon.  Muscular  irritability  responds  to  stimuli 
from  without  and  from  within  by  the  agency  of  the  senso-motor 
nerves.  The  lower  animals  obey  those  impulses  to  bodil^  and 
psychical  activity  which  we  call  instinctive.  The  higher  ani- 
mals superadd  to  the  instinctive  those  actions  which  they 
employ  with  a  more  or  less  distinct  intelligence,  and  with  a 
more  or  less  enlarged  adaptation  to  circumstances,  both  varied 
and  fixed.  Man  rises  to  that  wide  range  of  psychical  actions  of 
which  his  nature  is  capable,  to  actions  intellectual,  affection al, 
ethical,  and  spiritual ;  to  all  of  which  he  is  prompted  by  the 
impulsive  force  of  desire  common  to  them  all. 

For  example :  man  desires  to  know ;  that  is,  he  finds  satis- 
faction in  the  function  or  activity  called  knowing,  and  conse- 
quently desires  the  continuance  or  the  repetition  of  the  activity 
or  function  which  gives  him  this  enjoyment.  As  the  condition 
of  this  activity  and  consequent  satisfaction,  he  desires  to  be  con- 


54  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL   SCIENCE. 


[§20. 


fronted  with  knowable  objects,  both  facts  and  relations,  —  with 
the  events  which  gratify  his  curiosity,  or  the  scientific  truth 
which  interests  and  quickens  his  reason,  and  stimulates  and 
rewards  the  scientific  imagination.  Desiring  these  results,  he 
is  impelled  to  those  activities  which  are  the  means  of  bringing 
them  within  his  reach.  The  same  laws  hold  of  the  affections, 
so  far  as  they  are  desires,  or  involve  the  element  of  desire : 
hence  the  sensibilities  are  active  powers  because  they  are  aA)t- 
impelling.  This  impulsive  property  is  ultimate  in  the  human 
constitution.  Whether  the  action  is  muscular  and  corporeal, 
whether  it  is  psycho-physical  or  simply  psychical,  whether  as 
psychical  it  is  intellectual  or  affectional,  we  find  it  true  that 
sensibility,  when  transformed  into  desire,  is  not  only  bent  upon 
gratification,  but  impels  to  action. 

It  is  erroneously  assumed  by  many,  that  the  will  is  the  faculty 
I  *.  1*      X     which  makes  man  capable  of  action.     Thus  Kant 

Activity  not  ^ 

limited  to  says  :  "To  know,  to  feel,  and  to  act,  are  the  three 
functions  of  man  requiring  the  intellect,  the  sensi- 
bility, and  the  will."  If  this  is  true,  it  would  seem  that  ani- 
mals must  be  endowed  with  will  as  truly  as  man*.  This  con- 
ception and  assertion  manifestly  arise  from  oversight.  The 
possession  of  will  is  not  essential  to  activity  as  such,  but  only 
to  activity  of  a  certain  species,  so  far  as  action  is  voluntary. 
The  desires  impel  to  action  in  their  twofold  classes,  —  the 
bodily  and  the  psychical.  Both  these  actions  are  the  natural 
and  constant  effects  of  the  existence  of  the  feelings  which  pre- 
cede them.  Given  an  object  which  excites  a  sensibility  and 
awakens  a  desire,  and,  if  there  be  no  diverting  object  or  stronger 
counter-desire,  the  act  to  which  the  desire  impels  will  be  per- 
formed. The  appropriate  and  natural  issue  of  any  excitement  of 
feeling  is  action  of  some  sort.  The  arrangements,  or  economy 
which  makes  different  acts  possible,  differ  from  one  another. 
The  bodily  acts  depend  on  the  psycho-physical  apparatus  in 
which  the  nerves  and  muscular  system  are  conspicuous,  through 
which,  by  the   agency  of  the   reflex-motor  nerves,  certain  in- 


§21.]  THE  SENSIBILITIES  CLASSIFIED.  55 

dulged  desires  arrest  and  relax  the  muscles  that  control  the 
internal  and  external  movements.  The  control  of  the  mental 
and  psychical  activities  by  the  predominant  desires  is  effected 
directly  by  detaining  the  attention  upon  those  objects  of  thought 
which  are  congenial  to  the  feelings,  and  excluding  others. 
Objects  unthought  of  are  also  introduced  by  means  of  the 
associative  power  or  the  passive  memory. 

§  21.    The   sensibility,   as   emotion   and   desire   in   man,    is 
subject  to   great  diversities  m  different  individuals. 

r^/         ..J  .  ,  .  .  .        ,         Sensibility 

These  differences  pertam  to  the  positive  and  rela-  diverse  in 
tive  force  of  each  of  the  original  capacities  of  feel-  different  in- 

^  ^  dividuals. 

ing,  and  of  the  positive  and  relative  impulsiveness 
of  the  connected  desires.  Of  two  or  ten  men,  each  may  be 
distinguished  for  some  one  or  more  specially  sensitive  suscepti- 
bility or  specially  active  desire.  A  single  bodily  or  emotional 
capacity  of  one  man,  though  not  particularly  active  or  energetic 
by  reason  of  the  general  torpor  or  slowness  of  his  temperament, 
may  be  specially  excitable  and  impulsive  when  compared  with 
the  general  tone  of  his  intellectual  or  spiritual  sensibilities. 

These  differences  may  be  constitutional  and  individual,  or  the 
product  of  circumstances,  or  that  result  of  training  Difi^e^ences 
and  education  which  is  sometimes  called  the  environ-  natural  and 
ment.  Training,  again,  may  be  external  or  internal.  ^*^^^"^  ' 
It  may  proceed  from  others  (as  parents,  teachers,  and  the  com- 
munity) ;  or  it  may  come  from  within  by  the  agency  of  the  will, 
giving  energy  and  supremacy  to  some  affection  or  desire,  one 
or  many.  To  enforce  and  modify  both,  the  law  of  habit  must 
necessarily  come  into  play,  under  which  both  the  positive  and 
relative  energy  of  the  natural  sensibilities  may  be  increased, 
and  emotions  and  impulses  of  the  natural  constitution  may  be 
modified.  All  education  of  the  feelings,  or  springs  of  action, 
supposes  that  permanent  results  may  be  wrought  in  this  way 
into  what  may  be  called  the  substance  of  the  soul,  or  its  passive 
nature  as  distinguished  from  its  active  or  voluntary  forces ;  and 
thus,  in  a  certain  sense,  a  new  nature  may  be  substituted  for 


66  ELEMENTS  OF  MOBAL  SCIENCE. 


[§21. 


the  old.  The  possibility  of  culture,  and  its  value,  depend  on 
this  ultimate  fact.  Culture  and  habit  are  as  truly  potent  for 
evil  as  for  good.  The  entire  energies  are  now  and  then  concen- 
trated into  one  master-passion,  such  as  characterizes  the  saint, 
the  fiend,  or  the  brute.  The  appetite  of  the  drunkard,  the 
passion  of  the  lustful,  the  demonism  of  the  gambler,  and  the 
fiendishness  of  the  revengeful,  are  examples  of  such  a  sec- 
ondary controlling  and  irresistible  nature  or  passion.  Even 
when  evil  impulses  have  ceased  to  be  supreme,  their  natural 
effects  on  the  habits  and  emotions  remain ;  to  act  against  the 
bent  of  the  new  voluntary  life.  The  man  who  is  reformed  in 
his  will  and  the  springs  of  his  character  may  yet  need  to  be 
reformed  a  second  time  in  the  make  and  proportion  of  his  sen- 
sibilities, distorted  and  perverted  by  previous  vicious  indulgence. 
The  old  man  which  is  corrupt  in  the  tenacious  impulses  and 
habits  of  his  indulged  desires  must  often  be  made  new  in  the 
second  nature  that  must  be  wrought  over  again,  under  the  forma- 
tive power  of  the  new  habits  to  which  his  new  character  must 
train  him,  by  the  combined  operation  of  a  steadfast  will,  and 
with  all  the  appliances  of  favoring  circumstances,  social,  aes- 
thetic, and  religious. 

The  truth  that  man  is  the  same  in  his  original  endowments  of 
sensibility  by  no  means  involves  the  conclusion  that  all  men  are 
originally  similar  in  the  strength  or  relative  proportion  of  those 
sensibilities  which  are  essential  to  human  nature ;  much  less 
that  all  men,  as  we  meet  them,  are  alike  in  their  voluntary 
impulses :  in  other  words,  the  possession  of  a*  common  human 
nature  is  in  no  way  inconsistent  with  very  striking  diversities 
and  contrasts  of  individual  constitution  and  character. 

These  facts  and  phenomena  lead  us  to  another  division  of  the 
sensibilities  ;  viz.,  into  the  natural  and  voluntary,  or  the  sensi- 
bilities as  implanted  in  the  constitution,  and  the  sensibilities  as 
affected  by  the  will. 


§22.]    SENSIBILITIES  AS  MODIFIED  BY  THE   WILL.      51 


CHAPTER  III. 

THE  SENSIBILITIES  AS  MODIFIED  BY  THE  WILL. 

§  22.  We  have  treated  thus  far  of  the  sensibilities  as  though 
they  could  exist  and  act  independently  of  the  will. 

,„,  .      .  .      ,  ,      .        ,  ,       ,  ,  .       Sensibilities 

This  is  conceivable  in  thought,  but  never  actual  in   not  inde- 
f act.     No  human  being  who  is  fully  developed,  when  Pendent  of 
in  his  normal  maturity    and  under  normal   condi- 
tions, ever  feels,  except  as  his  feelings  are  penetrated  and  con- 
trolled  by   the   presence   and   activity   of   the   will.      All   the 
sensibilities  of  a  rational  and  developed  man  are  in  some  sense 
voluntary  sensibilities  ;  i.e.,  are  more  or  less  modified  by  the  vol- 
untary power.     We  discuss  the  sensibilities  apart  and  by  them- 
selves, as  we  are  forced  to  discuss  all  the  other  powers,  because 
it  is  only  in  this  way  that  we  can  discern  and  set  forth  their 
special  characteristics.     We  do  not  forget,  however,  that,  as 
we  are  conscious  of  their  activity  in  our  human  and  actual  expe- 
rience, they  are  always  penetrated  and  energized  by  the  volun- 
tary power. 

For  exactness  we   employ  the  three  terms,  "will,"  "voli- 
tion," and  "choice,"  respectively,  for  tJie  power,   yoiuntary 
the  action,  and  the  effect.     Other  appellations  are  not  power,  acts 

.    ^  ^  and  effects, 

infrequently    used;    as,    "the   voluntary    power,      appellations 
"the  act  of  choosing  or  of   choice,"  "election,"   ^°'"* 
"  preference,"  "  purpose,"  "  state  of  choice."      What,  then,  is 
tlie  wUl  ?     What  is  the  evidence  that  there  is  such  a  potper,  and 


68  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL   SCIENCE.  [§  22. 

what  is  its  nature,  its  conditions,  its  modes  of  action,  and  its 
effects  f 

The  earlier  writers,  whether  philosophers,  moralists,  or  theologians, 
Two  and  usually  and  almost  universally  assigned  to  the  soul  two 

three  fold  di-  faculties  only  (viz.,  the  intellect  and  the  will);  ascribing  to 
Tlsion  of  the  the  first  the  cognitive  operations,  and  to  the  second  all  the 
powers.  active  impulses,  both  emotional  and  voluntary. 

*'  This  power  which  the  mind  has,  thus  to  order  the  consideration  of  any 
idea,  or  the  forbearing  to  consider  it,  or  to  prefer  the  motion 
Tision  "  ^^  ^^^  P^^*  ^^  *^^^  body  to  its  rest,  and  vice  versa,  in  any  par- 
ticular instance,  is  that  which  we  call  the  will.  The  actual 
exercise  of  that  power,  by  directing  any  particular  action  or  its  forbearance 
is  that  which  we  call  volition,  or  willing."  —  Cf.  Locke's  Essay,  book  ii. 
chap.  xxi.  §  5. 

"These  powers  of  the  mind,  viz.,  of  perceiving  and  of  preferring,  are 
usually  called  by  another  name;  and  the  ordinary  way  of  speaking  is,  that 
the- understanding  and  will  are  two  faculties  of  the  mind,"  Qtc.  —  Ihid.,  §  6. 

*'  All  the  actions  that  we  have  any  idea  of,  reducing  themselves,  as  has 
been  said,  to  these  two;  viz.,  thinking  and  motion,  etc.:  so  far  as  a  man 
has  power  to  think  or  not  to  think,  to  move  or  not  to  move,  according 
to  the  preference  or  direction  of  his  own  mind,  so  far  is  a  man  free."  — 
/6id.,§8. 

And  yet,  in  §  30,  Locke  sharply  distinguishes  between  "willing"  and 
"volition,"  on  the  one  hand,  and  "desire,"  on  the  other:  "because  I 
find  that  the  will  is  often  confounded  with  several  of  the  affections,  es- 
pecially desire;  and  one  put  for  the  other,  and  that  by  men  who  would  not 
willingly  be  thought  not  to  have  distinct  notions  of  things,  and  not  to  have 
written  very  clearly  about  them." 

Dr.  Jonathan  Edwards  thus  writes:  "God  has  endowed  the  soul  with 
two  principal  faculties,  —  the  one,  that  by  which  it  is  capable 
Fd""  if"  ^^  perception  and  speculation,  or  by  which  it  discerns  and 
division.  judges  of  things,  which  is  called  the  understanding;  the  other, 

that  by  which  the  soul  is  in  some  way  inclined  with  respect 
to  the  things  it  views  or  considers;  or  it  is  the  faculty  by  which  the  soul  is 
some  way  inclined  with  respect  to  the  things  it  views  or  considers;  or  it 
is  the  faculty  by  which  the  soul  beholds  things,  not  as  an  indifferent,  un- 
affected spectator,  but  either  as  liking  or  disliking,  pleased  or  displeased, 
approving  or  rejecting.  This  faculty  is  called  by  various  names:  it  is  some- 
times called  the  inclination,  and,  as  it  respects  the  actions  that  are  deter- 
mined or  governed  by  it,  the  will,"  etc.  "The  will  and  the  affections  are 
'  not  two  faculties.  .  .  .  The  affections  are  not  essentially  distinct  from  the 
will,  nor  do  they  differ  from  the  mere  actings  of  the  will  and  inclination, 
jbut  only  in  the  liveliness  and  sensibility  of  exercise."  —  A  Treatise  concei'tir 
ing  Religious  Affections,  part  i.  §  1. 


§  23.]     SENSIBILITIES  AS  MODIFIED  BY  THE  WILL.    59 

Dr.  Thomas  Reid  (Essays  on  the  Active  Powers)  recognizes  the  current 
division  of  the  powers  into  two, —  the  understanding  and 
the  will,  —  and  takes  exception  to  its  correctness  by  appeal-    ^^]  Thomas 
ing  to  the  authority  of  Locke,  as  distinguishing  "  desire "    .  ^*    ^     ^*^" 
from  "will." 

Dr.  Thomas  Brown  (Inquiry  into  the  Relation  of  Cause  and  Effect,  §  3) 
rejects  altogether  the  distinction  proposed   by  Locke  and    Dr.  Thomas 
Reid,  and  insists  on  retaining  the  twofold  division.  Brown's. 

Dugald  Stewart  follows  Reid  in  his  comments  on,  and  allusions  to,  this 
distinction  of  Locke  (cf.  Collected  Works,  vol.  i.  p.  465,  note; 
vol.  ii.  p.  495,  note;  vol.  iv.  p.  375,  note;  vol.  vi.  pp.  344-355).    gt^^^^rt's 
The  first  two  of  these  passages  are  comments  dissenting  from 
Brown.    In  the  last  passage  —  which  is  in  the  appendix  to  Outlines  of  Moral 
Philosophy ;  On  Free  Agency  —  he  distinctly  defines  volition  to  be  an  act  of 
which  the  will  ig  the  power. 

Kant  introduced  the  threefold  classification  which  is  adopted  by  Sir 
William  Hamilton  (Metaphysical  Lectures,  xi.),  which  recog- 
nizes the  phenomena  of  knowledge,  of  feeling,  and  of  will  or    ^,*|**'^  ^*" 
desire,  giving  the  intellectual,  the  emotive,  and  the  conative 
or  impelling  faculties.    The  history  of  the  gradual  development  and  final 
maturity  in  the  mind  of  Kant,  of  this  classification,  and  of  its  relation  to 
his  three  great  works  (the  Critiques  of  the  Pure  and  Practical  Reason,  and 
the  Critique  of  the  Faculty  of  Judgment),  may  be  found  in  Kant's  Psycho- 
logic dargestellt  und  erdrtert  von  Jiirgen  Bona  Meyer  (Berlin,  1870,  pp.  41-65). 
It  is  singular,  that  much  as  Kant  makes  of  the  importance  and  the  diffi- 
culties of  "  freedom  "  as  the  condition  of  moral  responsibility,  and  as  fi^eely 
as  he  uses  the  designation  "the  will,"  he  nowhere  recognizes  it  as  a 
separate  faculty  which  is  capable  of  a  special  and  determinate  action  of  its 
own  ;  but  he  treats  the  will  uniformly  as  the  impelling  or  conative  power, 
or  the  faculty  of  desire  and  action. 

Professor  Thomas  C.  Upham  was  the  first  English  writer  who  distinctly 

adopted  the  threefold  classification  of  the  powers  of  the  soul    „    , 

Professor 
into  the  intellect,  sensibility,  and  will,  and  made  it  the  basis    xhomas  C. 

of  an  analysis  and  classification  of  psychological  phenomena  Upham's. 
(cf .  A  Philosophical  and  Practical  Treatise  on  the  Will,  Portland, 
1834).  The  distinction  and  nomenclature  had,  however,  previously  become 
current  in  some  well-known  schools  of  Ethics  and  Theology  (c^  HenrV 
P.  Tappan,  Reviev)  of  Edwards's  Inquiry  into  the  Freedom  of  the  Will,  New 
York,  1839).  In  the  later  nomenclature  and  definitions,  separate  appella- 
tions have  been  generally,  if  not  universally,  assigned  to  the  sensibility 
and  the  will. 

§  23.  The  ground  for  holding  to  a  third  faculty,  viz.,  the  will, 
is  the  evidence  for  such  peculiar  functions  and  effects  as  justify 


60  ELEMENTS  OF  MOBAL  SCIENCE.  [§  23. 

and  require  a  separate  power  to  account  for  their  occurrence. 
Our  analysis  of  the  sensibility  has  revealed  special  functions. 
It  also  enables  us  to  conceive  more  distinctly,  and  to  assert 
what  man  might  and  would  be,  were  he  endowed  with  intellect 
and  sensibility  alone.  We  cmn  do  this  most  effectively  by  sup- 
posing that  man  Jiad  no  icill^  and  inquiring  what 
tion  that  ^ '  "^ould  he  the  products  of  intellect  and  sensibility  only. 
man  had  no    y^q  ^sk,  then.  What  would  man  do  and  become  if 

rfiU. 

he  were  not  endowed  with  a  will?  We  answer, 
Without  will,  man  would  be  capable  of  knowledge.  He  could 
know  very  much  as  he  now  does,  in  every  manner  and  to 
every  result,  except  so  far  as  the  subject  or  the  object  matter 
of  knowledge  is  furnished  directly  or  indirectly  by  the  will 
itself.  He  might  observe  all  the  objects  and  phenomena  of 
the  world  of  sense,  with  all  the  experiences  and  facts  of  con- 
sciousness except  those  included  in  voluntary  action.  He 
might  also  connect  and  arrange  these  observed  facts  under  all 
the  relations  and  forms  of  scientific  thought.  He  could  also 
feel  in  all  the  forms  of  human  sensibility  except  those  which 
depend  on  the  exercise  of  will.  He  would  also  desire  all  those 
objects  which  intellect  and  feeling  make  possible.  He  might 
also  act  in  every  way  except  with  the  will :  he  might  act  with 
his  body,  and  act  with  his  mind ;  he  might  act  with  his  affec- 
tions and  from  his  emotions,  so  far  as  he  might  be  impelled 
by  either.  For  simple  activity,  and  even  for  effective  activity, 
as  we  have  seen,  desire  only  is  requisite  ;  and  desire  with  knowl- 
edge might  impel  to  intelligent  and  instructed  action.  Delib- 
eration also  would  be  possible,  whenever  two  or  more  objects 
were  present  as  moving  forces,  each  addressing  some  sensibil- 
ity, and  arousing  some  desire ;  and  both  of  these  could  not  be 
obeyed.  The  mind  might  compare  the  two,  might  hesitate  long 
as  to  which  were  the  more  desirable,  and,  after  many  vacilla- 
tions, fix  at  last  upon  one,  and  thus  determine,  decide,  and  in  a 
certain  sense  choose. 
Without  will,  man  might  also  possess  a  strongly  marked  char- 


§23.]      SENSIBILITIES   AS  MODIFIED   BY  THE    WILL.    61 

acter.      Each   individual   might  inherit   in   his  nature    certain 
original   capacities   of    feeling,    attended    by   their 

iui^nr  possess 

appropriate  desires,  constituting  his  individually  a  distinctive 
impelling  forces  or  motives.  This  character  might  *^  *'^**  ®'* 
be  useful  or  noxious,  amiable  or  odious.  It  might  be  formed 
or  moulded  by  training  or  culture,  so  far  as  his  intellect  should 
be  formed  to  acuteness,  reach,  and  energy,  and  his  feelings  be 
fixed  by  circumstances  or  society  into  relatively  new  springs 
of  action.  When,  then,  we  ask  whether  man  is  endowed  with 
a  will,  we  ask  whether  he  is  more  than  a  being  such  as  we  have 
described;  i.e.,  whether  he  is  capable  of  any  other  functions, 
and  of  any  other  products  or  effects,  than  intellect  and  sensi- 
bility might  account  for. 

Many  ^  contend  that  there  is  no  evidence  of  the  existence  of 
any  other  power  in  man  than  intellect  and  sensibility ;  that 
what  we  call  volition  is  only  a  stronger  or  prevailing,  perhaps 
a  more  or  less  permanent,  desire ;  and  that  the  will  is  but  the 
personification  of  man  as  endowed  with  an  intellect  which  is 
capable  of  deliberating  between  two  or  more  motives  that  con- 
flict by  exciting  two  desires,  both  of  which  cannot  be  gratified. 
Cerebralists  of  all  classes,  who  hold  that  every  mental  and  emo- 
tional state  is  the  effect  of  some  action  on,  or  m,  or  from  the 
brain,  either  for  the  first  time  experienced  or  subsequently  re- 
vived ;    associationalists,  who  resolve  all  psychical  phenomena 


1  Antony  Collins,  A  Philosophical  Inqinry  concerning  Human  Liberty; 
David  Hume,  Treatise  of  Human  Nature,  part  iii. ;  Inquiry  concerning  the 
Human  Understanding,  §  8;  Dr.  Thomas  Brown,  Lectures  on  the  Philosophy 
of  the  Human  Mind,  also  Inquiry  into  the  Relation  of  Cause  and  Effect; 
James  Mill,  Analysis  of  the  Phenomena  of  the  Mind,  2d  ed.,  with  additions, 
chap,  xxiv.;  John  Stuart  Mill,  A  System  of  Logic,  etc.,  part  vi.  chap,  ii.; 
also  An  Examination  of  Sir  William  Hamilton's  Philosophy,  chap,  xxvi.; 
George  Henry  Lewe«,  The  Study  of  Psychology,  etc.,  chap,  vii.;  John 
FiSKE,  Outlines  of  Kosmic  Philosophy,  chap,  xvii.;  Sociology  and  Free-will; 
Alexander  Bain,  The  Emotions  and  the  Will ;  Mental  and  Moral  Science, 
book  iv.;  Herbert  Spencer,  Data  of  Ethics;  The  Study  of  Psychology, 
chap.  viii. ;  Leslie  Stephen,  The  Science  of  Ethics,  chaps,  i.,  ii. 


62  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL  SCIENCE,  [§  24. 

into  new  perceptions  and  experiences,  wrought  by  inseparable 
associations  of  tliougbt  and  emotion  ;  evohitionists,  who  make 
the  powers  of  intellect  with  its  essential  relations,  as  also  the 
forces  of  sensibility,  to  be  the  products  of  the  inherited  tenden- 
cies and  forces  of  the  past,  as  they  have  been  fixed  and  trans- 
mitted in  and  through  the  structure  of  the  brain,  —  must 
necessarily  resolve  all  the  so-called  phenomena  of  volition  into 
the  activities  and  factors  of  intellect  and  feeling. 

§  24.  The  questions,  whether  there  is  such  a  power  in  man  as 
Questions  ^^^  ^*^^'  ^^^  what  are  its  functions  and  operations, 
concerning      ^^g  ^^^^.y  largely  questions  of  psychology,  being  con- 

the  vril]  are 

largely  psy.  cerned  with  psycliical  facts  or  phenomena,  the 
choiogicai.  reality,  nature,  and  conditions  of  which  must  be 
settled  by  the  methods  which  are  appropriate  to  psychology ; 
viz.,  by  a  direct  appeal  to  consciousness,  and  an  indirect 
appeal  to  the  language  and  actions  of  men.  These  inquiries, 
however,  involve  questions  of  philosophy;  i.e.,  questions  of 
speculative  definition  and  argumentation,  in  which  logical  con- 
sistency in  definition,  classification,  and  deduction,  is  sought 
for ;  either  in  single  classes  of  psychological  phenomena,  or 
the  broader  field  of  general  observation,  or  among  the  accepted 
axioms  or  conclusions  of  science  and  philosophy.  In  point  of 
fact,  the  discussions  of  this  subject  have  been  more  generally 
philosophical  and  theological,  rather  than  psychological.  It  is 
more  satisfactory  to  men,  generally,  to  begin  with  processes  of 
observation,  and  questions  of  fact.  It  is  more  natural  to  ask, 
first  of  all,  whether  there  are  certain  patent  and  unquestioned 
facts  or  experiences  in  the  soul  of  man,  to  which  our  theories 
and  axioms  must  adjust  themselves,  rather  than  to  assume  that 
certain  theories  and  axioms  are  established,  to  which  we  strive 
to  adjust  the  phenomena  which  consciousness  attests. 

„    ,  .       We  begin,  then,  with  the  testimony  of  conscious- 

Testimony  of  o     '  '  J 

conscious-  ness,  and  ask,  Are  there  any  facts  or  phenomena 
"****  which  require  or  justify  the  belief  that  there  is  in 

man  any  special  faculty  called  the  will?     The  phenomena  or 


§24.]     SENSIBILITIES  AS  MODIFIED  BY  THE   WILL.    63 

effects  have  been  enumerated,  which  can  be  referred  to  the 
intellect  and  sensibility.  Are  there  any  additional  acts  which 
require  us  to  accept  the  will  as  an  additional  power  ?  To  this 
question  we  reply,  There  are.  First  of  all,  in  many, 
not  to  say  in  most,  languages,  there  are  different  in  aii  lan- 
names  for  experiences  or  acts,  which  we  distinguish  ^"*^®^* 
as  feelings  or  desires  on  the  one  hand,  and  as  volitions  or 
preferences  on  the  other.  These  appellations  may  either  run  or 
shade  off  into  one  another  in  their  import,  and  often  be  inter- 
changed in  their  use ;  but  this  is  no  more  than  we  should 
expect,  if  we  consider  that  a  state  or  an  act  of  volition  must 
necessarily  include  the  element  of  knowledge  and  desire,  and 
that  the  strongest  and  feeblest  of  our  emotions,  as  we  find 
and  feel  them,  are  penetrated  and  controlled  by  volition.  It 
may  be,  and  doubtless  is,  true  that  these  appellations  are  not 
uniformly  kept  apart,  or  applied  with  scientific  exactness  or 
rigor.  The  fact  that  they  are  provided  in  the  common  speech 
of  men  proves  that  the  common  consciousness  of  men  distin- 
guishes three  separate  experiences  with  more  or  less  exactness, 
and  requires  these  three  appellations  to  express  them. 

The  consciousness  of  most  men  also  directly  attests,  that  an 
activity  of  pure  emotion,  and  an  impulse  of  simple  Emotions  and 
desire,  differ  from   a   volition.     Not  only  do   men  desires  dis- 
discern  that  they  differ   in    kind,  but   they  distin-  from  voii- 
guish  them  more  sharply ;  the  one  as  often  running  **®"** 
counter  to  the  other   as  when,  at   the  same  instant,  they  are 
strongly  moved  by  desire  towards  an  attractive  object,  and  yet 
reject  and  resist  it.     It  may  be  said,  and  often  is  said,  that,  in 
rejecting  an   object   desired,  we   are   only  the   subjects   of   a 
stronger  desire  for  an   object  which   excludes   the  first.     But 
consciousness  attests  not  merely  to  the  presence  of  one  desire 
prevailing  against  and  over  another,  as  a  psychical  experience 
or   effect,    but   also   to   a  desire   attended   to,  energized,  and 
caused  to  prevail,  by  the  soul's  own  activity.     In  more  exact 
language,  it  attests  to  a  desire  which  is  counter  to,  and  a  desire 


64  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL   SCIENCE.  [§  24. 

which  is  animated  by,  an  activity  or  effort  which  consciously 
differs  from  the  passiveness  of  any  emotion  as  such,  and  the 
impulsiveness  of  any  desire.  The  fact  that  the  effect,  as  sub- 
jectively known,  is  conspicuous  to  consciousness  in  the  form 
of  a  strong  permanent  fefeling,  by  no  means  proves  that  another 
agency  is  not  known  to  be  present,  as  originating  and  sustaining 
this  effect. 

Self-approbation  and  self-condemnation  require  the  belief  in 
Seif-approba-  ^^®  activity  of  will,  as  distinguished  from  the  pas- 
tion  and  self-   sivcucss  of  emotion  and  the  impulsiveness  of  desire. 

condemna-  .  .  ti  ii 

tion  imply  These  contrasted  emotions  or  experiences,  like  all 
the  belief.  others,  are  founded  on  the  knowledge  or  belief  of 
some  fact  or  relation  which  occasions  or  justifies  them.  The 
knowledge  on  which  self- approbation  rests  is  the  knowledge 
that  the  man  produces  the  state  or  act  for  which  he  approves 
himself.  The  fact  that  the  purpose  or  prevailing  desire,  as  it  is 
called,  is  his  own,  is  not  the  sole  ground  or  reason  of  this  emo- 
tion. He  does  not  approve  himself  merely  as  the  subject,  but 
also  as  the  producer,  of  the  emotion. 

This  is  pre-eminently  true  of  remorse,  or  self-condemnation. 
Pre-eminent-  C)f  all  the  emotions  of  which  man  is  the  subject,  this 
ly  remorse,  jg  ^he  most  uucomfortablc.  The  only  possible  occa- 
sion for  its  presence  is  the  conviction  that  I  am  the  author  of 
the  act  or  state  for  which  I  condemn  myself.  If  it  is  an  act 
of  my  body  only,  it  is  not  my  own  in  such  a  sense  as  that  I 
necessarily  condemn  myself  for  it.  If  it  is  an  act  of  the  intel- 
lect or  sensibility  alone,  it  is  still  not  my  own  as  a  ground  of 
self-reproach.  If  it  exists  as  an  impulse  or  desire  which  I  resist 
and  do  not  consent  to,  I  do  not  condemn  myself.  Here  is  an 
experience  against  which  our  nature  revolts,  —  an  experience 
which  exists  only  so  long  as  the  belief  continues  that  the  sub- 
ject of  it  produces  the  state  for  which  he  suffers,  or  rather  in- 
flicts, the  offensive  emotion.  The  fact  that  such  a  belief  cannot 
be  disowned  or  removed  would  go  far  to  prove  that  it  is 
foiinded  on  fact. 


§25.]     SENSIBILITIES  AS  MODIFIED  BY  THE   WILL,    ^f) 

That  civil  government  recognizes  the  presence  and  impor- 
tance of  this  conviction  as  the  ground  of  all  penal  responsibility, 
that  men  in  social  intercourse  hold  one  another  responsible  only 
so  far  as  they  believe  them  possessed  of  the  power  of  choice  and 
in  a  condition  to  use  this  power,  that  all  religious  teachings  and 
motives  assume  this  to  be  well  grounded,  are  facts  too  obvious 
to  need  to  be  urged. 

These  points  may  suffice  as  the  decisive  testimony  of  con- 
sciousness to  the  general  truth  that  man  is  endowed  with  some 
power  above  and  beyond  that  of  sensibility  and  desire. 

§  25.  To  this  general  conclusion,  founded  on  psychological 
evidence,  the  following  general  speculative  or  philo-  speculative 
sopJiical  objections  are  urged  :  —  objections. 

(1)  To  affirm  that  the  will  originates  choices,  or  voluntary  de- 
sires, is  to  deny  that  every  event  is  caused,  and    .^.  j^^  j 
thereby  to  abandon  the  principle  of  causality  as  an   the  denial  of 

1         .'  n     I  1  1     i?  i.'      1    causative  en- 

explanation  of  phenomena  and  a  ground  of  practical  g^gy. 
and  speculative  science. 

Sir  William  Hamilton^  has  this  in  view  when  he  concedes, 
"We  are  unable  to  conceive  an  absolute  commencement.  We 
cannot,  therefore,  conceive  a  free  volition."  In  reply,  it  may  be 
said,  that  to  refer  a  choice,  or  voluntary  desire,  to  the  will  as  its 
producing-agent,  is  to  trace  an  effect  directly  to  its  cause,  and,  so 
far,  to  explain,  if  not  technically  to  conceive  it.  It  is  certainly 
to  employ  the  relation  of  causation  for  the  purpose  of  explaining 
events  or  phenomena.  It  is  one  thing  to  assert  that  an  event  is 
the  product  of  a  causing- agent,  and  another  to  say  that  every 
cause  under  similar  circumstances  is  limited  to  a  single  effect. 


1  Metaphysical  Lectures,  xl.;  Discnssions,  Appendix  I.  and  A.;  Woi-ks  of 
Eeid,  p.  974,  note  U.  It  should  be  observed  that  Hamilton,  in  this  con- 
nection, uses  the  term  "  conceive "  in  a  special  sense,  as  equivalent  to 
explain  or  analyze  or  deduce  from  a  concept  or  premise  formed  under  the 
laws  of  deductive  thinking,  which  in  their  very  nature  apply  to  a  special 
and  limited  subject-matter;  i.e.,  to  those  beings  and  phenomena  which 
are  subject,  or  are  assumed  to  conform,  to  physical  or  necessary  law 


66  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL  SCIENCE.  [§  25. 

The  one  asserts  the  fact  of  causation,  the  other  its  laio.  Causes, 
as  such,  may  be  supposed  at  least  to  be  both  fixed  and  free,  in 
the  one  case  to  be  limited  by  certain  conditions,  and  in  the  other 
case  to  be  free  from  these  limitations.  The  question  is  not  of  a 
priori  speculation,  but  of  justified  truth,  whether  a  free  cause 
is  possible  in  conception,  and  real  as  fact.  The  terms  "lib- 
erty" and  "freedom,"  which  are  so  often  employed,  it  will 
be  observed,  are  both  negative  in  form,  and,  as  such,  only  aflSrm 
the  absence  of  physical  necessity.  The  use  of  positive  attributes, 
expressing  the  capacity  to  choose  or  to  act  in  the  special  and 
peculiar  form  assigned  to  the  will,  is  often,  if  not  universally, 
to  be  preferred. 

(2)  The  existence  and  activity  of  a  free  cause  is  also  asserted 
Is  inconceir-  to  be  inconceivable  or  incomprehensible,  as  in  the 
able.  sentence  quoted  already,  and  in  many  others  like  it, 

from  Hamilton.  The  word  *'  inconceivable,"  as  he  employs  it, 
cannot  signify  "  incapable  of  being  referred  to  any  agency  or 
cause,"  inasmuch  as  the  effect  in  question,  when  referred  to  the 
will,  is  most  emphatically  ascribed  to  a  force  which  is  spiritual 
in  its  nature,  and  therefore  self -active  and  pre-eminently  deserv- 
ing to  be  called  an  agent,  a  cause,  or  a  productive  force :  it 
can  only  mean  "  incapable  of  being  explained  by  an  agency  that 
is  governed  by  fixed  or  necessitated  laws."  That  all  the  phe- 
nomena of  spirit  act  under  laws  which  differ  more  or  less  from 
those  of  matter,  is  true  ;  and  that  some  of  these  phenomena  may 
wholly  exclude  necessity,  may  be  held  without  rendering  the 
phenomena  inconceivable  in  every  sense  of  the  term. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  existence  of  a  free  causal  force  with 
Explained  by  its  special  laws,  as  also  its  importance  and  place  in 
final  cause,  ^jjg  universe,  are  made  wholly  conceivable  in  a  higher 
and  more  satisfactory  sense  by  a  reference  to  the  relation  of 
final  cause  or  design.  If  moral  responsibility  and  moral  free- 
dom, with  the  manifold  relations  and  advantages  which  they 
imply,  are  the  essential  conditions  of  character  and  personality 
in  the  eminent  senses  of  these  terms,  then  the  phenomena  of 


§25.]     SENSIBILITIES  AS  MODIFIED  BY  THE   WILL.    67 

free  choices  are  rendered  conceivable,  Jlrst^  by  being  referred  to 
a  causal  agency  which  is  competent  to  originate  such  effects ; 
and,  second,  as  the  existence  of  these  free  causes,  in  connection 
with  causes  that  are  fixed,  is  also  explained  by  the  relation  of 
design.  A  more  profound  philosophy  teaches  us  to  conceive 
and  explain  powers  and  laws  and  events  by  both  these  relations 
or  principles  (cf.  The  Human  Intellect,  §  612). 

(3)  It  is  objected  still  further,  that  to  assert  the  power  of 
choice  excludes  the  possibility  of  experience  and   .g.  Excludes 
forecast  in  respect  to  those  events  in  which  man  is  possibility 
concerned,  whether  as  an  individual,  or  a  member  of  ^ess  of  ex- 
the  community.  perience. 

It  is  confidently  urged,  "that  if  man  can  choose  freely,  and 
his  choices  are  not  made  certain  by  the  motives  which  meet  him, 
then  it  is  impossible  to  predict  what  his  choices  will  be.  The 
experiences  of  the  past  can  throw  no  light  upon  the  problems  of 
the  future.  The  observation  of  what  men  have  been  or  done, 
under  a  given  combination  of  circumstances,  furnishes  no  war- 
rant for  predicting  what  men  will  be  or  do  should  these  circum- 
stances recur  a  second  time.  It  follows  that  all  knowledge  of 
man  as  an  individual,  or  in  his  relations  to  his  fellow-man,  —  of 
man  in  business,  in  politics  and  literature,  —  is  excluded  ;  for  no 
observations  of  the  past  can  furnish  any  reliance  or  any  instruc- 
tion for  the  future.  On  this  theory,  there  can  be  no  knowledge 
of  human  nature,  no  social  science,  and  no  philosophy  of  his- 
tory ;  there  can  be  no  philosophy  of  human  progress,  and  no 
faith  in  human  development.  But  all  men  believe  in  the  teachings 
of  experience,  and  count  the  knowledge  which  it  gives  as  trust- 
worthy and  important :  it  therefore  follows  that  any  view  of  the 
activity  of  the  will  which  excludes  such  experience  is  irrational." 

To  this  we  reply,  that  in  point  of  fact,  all  the  j^ggg^ng  ^f 
results  of  man's  experience  with  man  are  held  with  experience 
a  proviso  that  they  will  apply  only  to  men  of  a  ^n^h  a 
certain  description  or  character.     We  reason  thus  :   proviso, 
if   one   or  many   men   are   controlled   by   purposes   and   pas- 


68  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL   SCIENCE.  [§  25. 

sions  that  are  selfish,  ambitious,  envious,  etc.,  then  we  may 
expect  that  in  certain  circumstances  such  and  such  events  will 
follow.  Sir  Robert  Walpole  held  it  as  an  axiom,  that  every  man 
has  his  price;  i.e.,  that  every  man  could  be  purchased,  or  gained 
over  to  any  cause,  if  you  could  find  the  temptation  which  would 
move  him.  The  saying  is  susceptible  of  two  constructions : 
it  might  mean  that  every  man  must  be  controlled  by  some 
affection,  or  governed  by  some  supreme  object  of  love  or 
choice,  whether  he  is  virtuous  or  vicious,  whether  saint  or  fiend  ; 
or  it  might  signify  that  every  man  is  at  heart  more  or  less  of 
a  scoundrel,  being  controlled  by  selfish  aims  and  desires,  vari- 
ous in  kinds  and  degrees.  Interpreted  in  the  first  sense,  it  is 
an  important  principle  in  Ethics  ;  but  in  life  it  is  a  tame  truism 
^o  soon  as  it  is  divested  of  the  brilliancy  which  it  catches  from 
a  false  light.  In  the  second  sense,  it  might  have  been  true  of 
many  of  the  men  whom  Sir  Robert  had  in  his  mind,  and  indeed 
of  all  those  with  whom,  as  a  political  manager,  he  proposed  to 
have  any  transactions.  But  it  would  not  follow  that  it  was  true 
of  all  the  men  of  his  generation,  or,  even  if  it  had  been  true, 
of  the  men  of  all  generations  previous. 

Sir  Andrew  Marvel  dared  to  write  of  the  men  of   his  time, 
*'  We  are  all  venal  cowards  except  some  few.*^     The 

Case  of 

Andrew  story  may  be  true  or  not,  that  Marvel  himself  refused 

Maryei.  ^  thousand- pound  note  from  the  hands  of  the  lord- 

treasurer,  Danby,  who  was  sent  to  gain  him  to  the  cause  of  the 
king,  using  the  words,  "  I  am  here  to  serve  my  constituents : 
the  ministry  may  seek  other  men  for  their  purposes  ;  I  am  not 
one."  But  his  example  suggests  and  illustrates  the  general 
truth,  that  what  are  called  the  lessons  of  experience,  when  used 
as  grounds  of  forecast  and  practical  wisdom,  require  as  much 
sagacity  for  their  application  as  for  their  origination.  In 
other  words,  it  is  necessary  first  to  interpret  the  character,  i.e., 
the  controlling  choices  and  fixed  dispositions,  of  the  men  to 
whom  we  apply  the  lessons  of  experience,  if  we  would  save  our- 
selves from  serious  errors.     Our  generalizations  extend  only  so 


§26.]      SENSIBILITIES  AS  MODIFIED  BY  THE   WILL.    69 

far  as  this  :  the  man  who  gives  certain  indications  of  character 
may  be  presumed  to  act  so  and  so,  under  such  and  such  circum- 
stances. We  may  then  assume  or  infer  that  the  majority  of 
men,  as  we  find  them,  do  give  these  indications  of  relative 
weakness  or  strength,  of  rectitude  or  dishonor.  It  follows  that 
the  majority  of  men  under  these  circumstances,  and  with  the 
characters  supposed,  will  act  as  we  predict  they  will.  But  men 
in  different  ages,  and  different  parts  of  the  world,  differ  from  one 
another  in  their  springs  of  action,  and  therefore  in  their  conduct. 
Moreover,  the  same  men  sometimes  change  their  characters 
either  suddenly  or  gradually,  but  so  completely  that  their 
conduct  does  not  correspond  with  what  we  should  confidently 
predict  or  expect  under  circumstances  fitted  to  test  either,  and 
our  expectations  and  prophecies  are  sadly  disappointed.  In- 
deed, the  very  experience  which  we  gain  in  applying  the  lessons 
of  experience  to  the  exigencies  of  life  is  fitted  to  teach  us  that 
we  can  neither  safely  interpret  nor  rely  upon  the  forces  and 
laws  of  human  nature  as  we  interpret  and  rely  on  material 
forces  and  laws.  We  confide  iu  the  one  as  fixed  and  constant, 
and  as  therefore  capable  of  ready  interpretation  and  easy  appli- 
cation. We  know  the  other  to  be  variable,  and  are  more  or 
less  uncertain  in  both  these  processes. 

§  26.  This  special  question  necessarily  expands  into  the  more 
general  inquiry.  How  far  is  the  philosophy  of  human  ^^^  ^^^  .^ 
conduct  or  the  philosophy  of  history  an  exact  sci-  history  an  ex- 
ence?    On  the  one  hand,  it  is  contended  by  the  posi- 
tivists,  and   those  who   sympathize  with   them,^  that,  on  the 

1  Cf.  AuGUSTE  CoMTE,  La  Philosophie  Positive ;  J.  Stuart  Mill,  Logic, 
book  vi. ;  H,  T.  Buckle,  Histoi'y  of  Civilization  in  England ;  J.  W.  Draper, 
History  of  the  Intellectual  Development  of  Europe  ;  Herbert  Spencer,  In- 
troduction  to  the  Study  of  Sociology;  Data  of  Ethics;  Leslie  Stephen, 
Science  of  Ethics;  John  Fiske,  Kosmic  Philosophy,  part  ii.  chap,  xvii.; 
Sociology  and  Free-will ;  J.  A.  Froude,  Short  Studies,  etc.,  vol.  i.;  Goldwin 
Smith,  Lectures  on  the  Study  of  History;  James  Ferrier,  Lectures  and 
Philosophical  Remains,  vol.  ii.  195,  255  ;  William  Adam,  An  Inquiry  into 
the  Theories  of  History,  with  Special  Reference  to  the  Principles  of  the  Positive 
Philosophy,  2d  ed.,  London,  1884. 


70  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL   SCIENCE,  [§  26. 

hypothesis  of  freedom  in  willing,  such  a  science  is  impossible. 
This  argument  has  been  re-asserted  and  re-enforced  by  the  ex- 
treme evolutionists,  who,  like  Herbert  Spencer,  seek  to  combine 
in  their  fundamental  philosophy  the  theory  of  physiological 
development  with  a  positivist  or  biological  or  associational 
psychology.  These  writers  all  either  assume  or  contend  that 
man  is  the  product  of  circumstances  as  truly  as  any  material 
agent,  and  that  in  his  constitution,  his  environment,  and  his 
activities,  he  is  either  a  mechanical  product  or  an  organic  growth, 
to  which  the  conceptions  of  freedom  are  as  inapplicable  as  to 
the  mechanical  aggregations  of  the  planets,  or  the  physiological 
structure  and  manifestations  of  vegetable  and  animal  life. 

Those  who  accept  moral  freedom  as  an  essential  and  distinc- 
tive endowment  of  human  nature,  construct  their  philosophy  of 
history  on  the  assumption  that  man  as  an  individual,  and  man  in 
society,  represent  two  sets  of  forces,  —  the  natural  and  moral, 
the  physical  and  the  psychical.  They  concede  and  contend, 
that,  even  in  the  psychical  sphere,  man  is  subjected  largely,  but 
not  wholly,  to  necessary  conditions  and  forces,  and  yet  is  also 
endowed  with  the  freedom  which  exalts  him  to  the  dignity  of 
personal  character,  and  makes  him  capable  of  the  responsibilities 
of  moral  life.  Whatever  may  be  the  use  which  man  makes  of 
this  freedom,  and  under  whatever  influences,  natural  or  supernat- 
ural,—  whether  it  be  man  the  individual,  or  man  as  a  community, 
—  there  still  remains  a  wide  and  ample  field  for  the  operation  of 
natural  forces  under  fixed  laws,  in  the  tendencies  and  powers 
which  belong  to  his  physical  and  psychical  nature.  These,  so 
far  as  they  can  be  determined  and  predicted,  offer  abundant 
material  for  the  philosophy  of  history,  and  the  political  and 
sociological  sciences. 

Inconsistent  W  ^^  '^^  urged  still  further  that  freedom  of  will 
with  fore-       excludes  the  possibility  of  foreknowledge,  providen- 

knowleilge  .   ,     ,.  .  ,         .   ..       ^    -    a  ^i  j. 

on  the  part     tial  du'cctiou,  and  spiritual  influences,  on  the  part 

of  God.  Qf  Qq^^  ^j^Ij  respect  to  the  volitions  of  men. 

I    These  objections  are  not  limited  to  the  teachings  of  Christian 


§26.]     SENSIBILITIES  AS  MODIFIED  BY  THE  WILL.    71 

theology.  Every  man  who  believes  in  a  supreme  Creator  and 
Ruler,  who  is  also  wise  and  good,  must  necessarily  raise  such 
questions  as  these:  "How  can  man  be  free,  and  God  be 
supreme?"  "How  can  man  originate  his  choices,  and  God 
foreknow  them  ?  "  "  How  can  man  be  responsible  for  what  he 
chooses  and  for  what  he  does,  and  God  exert  an  influence  upon 
him,  or  give  direction  and  control  to  human  affairs?  "  « 

It  is  one  thing  to  raise  questions  like  these,  and  even  to  find 
it  difficult  or  impossible  to  answer  them,  and  quite  another  to 
conclude  that  the  doctrines  in  question  cannot  be  reconciled. 
We  may  have  decisive  reasons  for  believing  that  a  position  is 
true,  and  yet  be  ignorant  of  all  its  relations  to  other  truths,  or 
embarrassed  in  determining  those  relations.  There  are  many 
truths  and  events  of  which  we  have  abundant  evidence,  the 
relations  of  which  to  other  facts  and  events  are  not  yet  fully 
mastered  by  human  discovery  and  speculation.  There  may 
be  some,  which  are  not  yet  fully  explained  and  adjusted, 
in  which  every  man  firmly  believes,  and  upon  satisfactory 
evidence. 

The  difficulties  and  objections  in  the  present  case   are  met 
and  set  aside  by  the  following   general   considera- 
tions.     The   foreknowledge   by   God   of    the   free  knowledge" 
choices  of  his  creatures  is  not  necessarily  limited  to  uniiJ^e  that 

of  man. 

the  grounds  or  evidence  by  which  man  foreknows 
or  predicts  the  actions  of  his  fellows.  Man,  it  is  conceded,  can 
foreknow  with  certainty  those  events,  and  those  only,  which  are 
the  necessary  products  of  the  forces  of  nature,  or  forces  of  spirit, 
so  far  as  they  act  under  fixed  and  necessary  laws.  For  exam- 
ple :  all  the  eclipses  which  will  occur  within  the  next  two  centu- 
ries can  be  confidently  predicted,  provided  only  that  the  cosmical 
forces  now  existing  shall  continue  to  exist  and  act  after  the 
methods  and  under  the  laws  which  at  present  control  them. 
But  it  would  be  presumptuous  to  conclude  from  this  circumstance 
that  the  only  possible  method  by  which  God  can  forecast  the 
acts  of  free  beings  is  by  means  of  the  motives  which  necessi- 


72  ELEMENTS  OF  MOBAL  SCIENCE.  [§  26. 

tate  their  existence.  It  may  be  true,  —  at  least,  no  man  can 
prove  the  contrary,  —  that  God,  by  an  act  of  immediate  foresight, 
can  foreknow  every  choice  of  every  free  being.  The  self-exist- 
ent Creator  who  imparts  and  upholds  the  existence  and  spiritual 
capacities  of  created  spirits,  who  are  themselves  free  to  choose, 
may  directly  foreknow  what  each  would  choose  under  every 
conceivable  variety  of  motives,  and  may  absolutely  foreknow 
what  each  will  choose  in  fact  under  the  circumstances  which  he 
shall  assign  him.  Foreknowledge  or  forecertainty,  as  such, 
contemplates  the  certainty  of  a  fact  or  event,  whatever  be  its 
nature  or  the  conditions  of  its  occurrence.  So  far  as  God  by  his 
purposes  appoints  the  conditions  for  man's  activity,  or  acts 
directly  upon  man's  free  spirit,  we  may  be  confident  that  he 
will  respect  the  nature  of  the  being  whom  he  has  created  free 
in  order  that  he  might  be  responsible  and  moral. 

These  objections  are  made  and  answered  from  the  stand-point 
of  theism,  —  the  theism  which  teaches  that  God  and  man  are 
personal  and  free,  and  that  man  in  some  important  sense 
bears  some  likeness  to  God.  Whatever  objections  against  the 
possibility  and  reality  of  freedom  in  man  are  derived  from  a 
materialistic,  a  positivist,  an  assqciationalist,  a  pantheistic,  or  an 
evolutionistic  philosophy  must  stand  or  fall  with  the  speculative 
theory  upon  which  they  rest.  We  should  never  forget,  however, 
that  all  these  theories  require  us  by  logical  consistency  to  deny 
what  consciousness  affirms  to  be  true ;  viz.,  that  man  actually 
exercises  the  power  of  will,  and  holds  himself  responsible  as  the 
originator  of  his  choices  and  of  the  acts  which  legitimately  result 
from  them. 

These  general  considerations  establish  the  truth  that  the 
power  of  choosing  is  possessed  by  man.  Man  knows  that  he  is 
endowed  with  will  as  truly,  —  and  by  evidence  similar  to  that  by 
which  he  knows  that  he  is  endowed  with  intellect  and  sensibility. 
To  know,  to  feel,  and  to  choose  are  three  distinguishable  func- 
tions, all  of  which  are  consciously  known  by  being  exercised. 
For  these  separate  functions  three  several  powers  are  requured. 


§27.]     SENSIBILITIES  AS  MODIFIED  BY  THE  WILL.    73 

To  choose  is  a  clearly  recognized  and  distinguished  function, 
for  which  we  require  a  faculty  called  the  will'. 

§  27.  The  fact  should  not  be  overlooked,  and  cannot  be  denied,  that  the 
most  important  consequences  follow  the  recognition  or  denial 
of  moral  freedom,  not  only  in  the  theory  of  ethics,  but  in  the    *''*®®do™  *»■ 
theory  of  every  science  which  has  to  do  with  man,  —  in  both  eleme  t 

his  individual  and  social  relations,  as  truly  as  in  his  relations  into  science, 
to  God  and  a  possible  future  life.  Freedom,  it  must  be  con- 
fessed, introduces  to  science  a  new  set  of  phenomena  for  its  recognition, 
and  consequently  modifies  and  enlarges  our  conceptions  of  the  axioms  and 
ideals  of  science,  as  also  of  the  subject-matter  with  which  science  has  to  do, 
finding  a  high  place,  and  perhaps  the  highest,  for  the  phenomena  of  spirit 
as  capable  of  personality  and  responsibility  in  contrast  with  matter,  which 
is  capable  of  neither.  It  also  introduces  a  new  element  into  the  explanation 
of  all  the  phenomena  which  pertain  to  man,  regarding  the 

facts  of  his  individual  and  social  life  as  something  more  than     , .?       "      . 

philosophy  of 
the  products  of  material  or  even  of  psychical  substance  and    man, 

environment.  It  finds  a  place  for  consistent  conceptions  of 
duty  and  responsibility,  of  personal  and  civil  rights,  and  for  the  individual 
and  social  progress  of  such  beings  as  men  know  themselves  to  be.  It  must 
necessarily  affect  our  entire  theory  of  human  progress  and  human  history. 
Indeed,  in  whatever  form  faith  in  progress  may  be  held,  —  whether  as  the 
old  faith  in  a  providential  plan,  or  the  new  theory  of  blind  evolution;  and 
to  whatever  subject-matter  it  may  be  applied,  whether  to  principles  or 
institutions,  whether  to  thoughts  or  events;  or  whatever  it  may  be  called, 
whether  the  philosophy  of  history,  or  political  or  social  science,  whether  a 
sociology  or  a  theodicy,  —  every  principle  and  conclusion  in  this  faith 
will  be  affected  by  the  affirmance  or  denial  of  moral  freedom  as  possible 
and  real. 

The  positivist  and  the  evolutionist  think  to  decide  the  question  of  freedom 
by  the  summary  assertion,  that,  without  necessitating  causes 
and  unchanging  laws,  science  is  impossible,  no  matter  what    The  positivist 
the  subject-matter  or  phenomena  may  be,  whether  material    *?*    ®^  "' 
or  spiritual.    To  this  argument  the  advocate  of  freedom  re-   freedom. 
plies  by  a  direct  appeal  to  human  consciousness  for  the  evi- 
dence that  freedom  is  exercised  in  fact.    He  finds,  also,  that  the  elements  of 
necessity  and  of  freedom  are  present  and  conspicuous  in  all  the  phenom- 
ena which  pertain  to  man,  the  individual  and  social,  —  in  the  facts  of 
ethics  and  history,  of  conduct  and  character.    He  finds,  also,  that  these  two 
classes  of  elements  and  agents  are  adapted  to  one  another, 
and  suppose  one  another;  that  necessary  elements  imply  free         , 
selection,  and  intelligent  control,  and  successful  achievement, 
and  inspiring  motives,  while  freedom  supposes  fixed  habits,  and  growth  in 


74  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL   SCIENCE.  [§  27. 

the  strength  and  conquests  of  character,  the  building-up  of  institutions,  and 
the  development  of  science  and  art  and  literature. 

He  also  finds,  that  in  knowledge  itself,  as  a  function  of  the  intelligence, 

there  is  an  element  and  evidence  of  freedom,  something  more 

nteUlgence      x\^2iXi.  the  passive  reception  of  impressions  from  the  stirrings  of 

dom.  sense,  and  the  mechanical  revival  of  the  same  by  the  laws  of  a 

passive  memory  :  in  other  words,  that  even  in  science  itself 
the  intelligence  is  a  spontaneous  creator  and  producer,  rather  than  a  passive 
recipient.  This  fact  raises  the  presumption,  that,  if  the  mind  in  its  intellec- 
tual activities  and  products  is  something  more  than  the  passive  subject  of 
its  environment,  much  more  is  it  free  in  those  processes  which  result  in 
purposes,  habits,  and  character.  These  are  pre-eminently  the  effects  of  its 
own  activity,  so  far  as  their  form  (that  is,  so  far  as  the  moral  in  them)  is 
concerned;  although  in  their  maimer  they  may  obey  the  law  of  necessity, 
and  be  amenable  to  the  most  rigid  and  scientific  scrutiny.  The  moral 
qualities  of  actions  and  events,  we  assert,  are  pre-eminently  the  effects  or 
products  of  the  soul's  activity;  although  the  individual  objects  which  are 
presented  for  its  election  may  be  the  matter  to  which  it  is  limited  and 
encircled,  and  by  which  its  choices  are  in  a  certain  sense  determined. 

It  follows,  that,  if  freedom  is  accepted,  there  still  remains  a  wide  field  for 
F    edom  *^®  philosophy  of  history,  and  the  investigations  of  political 

leaves  a  field  ^^^  social  science  on  that  side  of  human  events  which  obey 
for  historical  necessary  causes  and  fixed  laws.  But  if  freedom  is  denied 
and  political  altogether,  then  man  is  subject  only  to  physiological  and 
science.  social  forces  as  they  vary  in  kind  and  degree.    As  these  forces 

change,  so  is  it  with  their  effects.  Every  thing  which  man  intends  or 
does  is  completely  at  the  control  of  his  environment,  and  his  capacity  to 
re-act  under  necessary  law.  On  the  other  hand,  moral  freedom  may  be 
fully  provided  for,  even  though  in  its  manifestations  and  specific  acts  it 
may  be  subject  to  those  natural  agencies  and  conditions  which  can  be 
measured  and  computed  by  rigidly  scientific  standards.  It  is  with  these 
natural  forces,  as  a  partial  element  in  human  history  and  human  progress, 
that  the  historical  and  political  sciences  have  to  do.  These  conditions 
of  human  progress  are  the  field  for  probable  inductions,  —  inductions 
which  in  their  interpretations  of  the  past,  and  prognostications  of  the 
future,  may  take  a  scientific  form,  due  allowance  being  made  for  the  free 
activities  of  individuals  and  communities  as  a  variable  element,  so  to 
speak,  of  both  force  and  direction.  It  should  always  be  remembered, 
that  it  is  with  these  variable  quanta  that  historical  and  political  phi- 
losophy are  concerned.  But  these  forces  are  natural,  and  not  ethical;  the 
ethical  element  being  always  furnished  by  the  individual  will.  Both  in- 
dividual judgments  and  feelings,  and  the  movements  which  proceed  from 
common  opinions,  impulses,  and  passions,  can  all  be  traced  by  science  to 
the  natural  forces  or  tendencies  which  produce  them,  even  though  these, 
in  their  turn,  are  modified  in  their  energies  and  results  by  the  individual 


§27.]     SENSIBILITIES  AS  MODIFIED  BY  THE   WILL.    75 

wills  of  the  human  beings  who  re-act  against  them.  On  the  other  hand,  the 
moral  element  in  these  phenomena  can  never  be  weighed  or  measured  in 
the  estimates  of  political  or  social  science :  it  must  always  be  set  down  as 
what  is  sometimes  called  a  "  personal  equation." 

In  other  words,  while  the  force  or  ethical  element  in  fche'phenomena  of 
man's  individual  and  social  life  can  never  occur  apart  from 
those  events  which  are  subject  to  natural  law,  the  two  can    Necessary 

be  distinguished  as  the  free,  on  the  one  hand,  and  the  neces-   ^"     *^®®  ?.  ®" 

"  nomena  dis- 

sary,  on  the  other.  "What  the  man  or  the  community  thinks,  tinguishable. 
and  desires,  and  does,  and  longs  for,  what  either  is  in  temper- 
ament and  disposition,  may  be  the  result  of  inheritance  and  environment 
under  natural  and  necessitating  law;  but  what  each  becomes,  in  ethical 
character,  purposes,  and  desires,  he  is  by  his  own  free  and  personal  will. 
Phenomena  and  effects  of  this  nature,  whether  they  appear  in  the  form  of 
single  emotions,  permanent  desires,  a  prevailing  disposition,  or  a  responsible 
character,  can  only  be  the  products  and  effects  of  personal  freedom. 

It  should  never  be  forgotten,  that  if  science  positively  denies  the  possi- 
bility, or  ignores  the  fact,  of  these  phenomena,  literature,  on 
the  other  hand,  is  abundant  and  positive  in  their  recognition.    I^iterature 
If  science  denies  these  facts  and  their  tremendous  signifi-        ,         . 
cance,  or  finds  no  place  for  personal  freedom  and  personal   freedom. 
responsibility,  literature  finds  and  recognizes  them  every- 
where.   In  song  and  tale,  in  argument  and  appeal,  in  fiction  and  the  drama, 
in  the  ode  and  the  hymn,  the  free  personality  by  which  man  rises  or  sinks  in 
that  moral  life  by  which  he  is  a  blessing  or  a  curse  to  himself  and  his  race, 
is  always  assumed,  and  often  asserted,  in  every  form  in  which  the  inmost 
convictions  and  unshaken  truths  concerning  man's  nature  can  possibly  find 
expression.    Let  these  convictions  be  abandoned,  and  the  fervor  and  pas- 
sion, the  humor  and  wit,  the  eloquence  and  invention,  of  all  forms  of  litera- 
ture, would  die  out;  being  withered  and  scorched  into  barrenness  by  the 
denial  that  man  is  a  person,  and  as  a  person  is  free,  and  as  free  is  respon- 
sible to  himself,  to  his  fellow-men  and  his  God. 

It  does  not  follow,  however,  that  there  is  an  essential  conflict  or  antinomy 
between  the  axioms  or  conclusions  of  literature  and  science, 
but  only  that  literature  takes  cognizance  of  a  greater  number      ^  antinomy 
of  relations  than  does  science;  and  these  a  class  of  relations    x 
with  which  science,  as  such,  need  not  directly  concern  itself, 
viz.,  those  which  grow  out  of  freedom  and  personality.    Moreover,  if  free- 
dom and  personality  are  recognized  forces  in  the  actual  universe  of  limited 
beings,  it  may  surely  be  accepted  as  philosophically  possible  that  the  uni- 
verse itself,  consisting  as  it  does  of  persons  and  things,  may  be  directed  by 
an  intelligent  Person,  without  any  necessary  conflict  or  incompatibility 
in  the  agencies  appropriate  to  each  of  these  spheres,  and  according  to  an 
intelligent  plan,  after  a  law  of  progressive  development.    Such  a  theory  of 
nature  and  of  God  would  be  in  no  sense  inconsistent  with  the  facts  and 


76  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL  SCIENCE.  [§  27. 

phenomena  which  science  has  established,  including  the  law  of  evolution. 
While  it  would  furnish  a  basis  for  all  that  could  rationally  be  looked  for 
in  the  philosophy  of  history,  or  a  science  of  sociology,  or  faith  in  human 
development  and  progress,  it  would  in  no  way  be  inconsistent  with  the 
existence  and  activity  of  free  moral  personalities,  nor  with  a  directing 
Providence,  nor  with  a  variety  of  influences  of  a  personal  and  ethical  char- 
acter, which  may  be  supposed  to  be  exerted  without  interference  with  any 
of  those  material  agents  or  agencies  which  are  controlled  by  physical  laws. 
While,  in  such  a  universe  and  its  phenomena,  matter  and  the  sciences  of 
matter  would  still  occupy  their  sphere  and  assert  their  rights,  spirit  and 
freedom  and  personality  and  duty  might  still  be  supreme.  Of  the  existence 
of  such  a  universe,  there  is  abundant  evidence.  The  consciousness  and 
convictions  of  the  majority  of  men  attest  its  reality.  —  Cf.  Ch.  B£1(ouvieb, 
Science  de  la  MorcUet  Dernier  Mot  sur  la  Libert^,  chap,  xcvii. 


§28.]  THE   WILL  DEFINED.  77 


CHAPTER    IV. 

THE   WILL   DEFINED. 

§  28.  The  general  conclusion  which  we  have  reached,  con- 
cerning the  will  as  an  agent,  brings  us  to  the  more  exact  deter- 
mination of  its  nature.  We  ask,  WJiat  is  it 9  How  is  it  defined? 
WJiat  are  the  conditions  of  its  activity?  and,  most  important  of 
all,  What  are  the  effects  or  consequences  of  its  exercise  ? 

We  ask.  What  is  the  power  called  '-Hjie  WilV  ? 

This  question  can  be  answered  more  satisfactorily  by  first 
defining  what  it  is  not.  This  inquiry  is  of  more  than  what  the  will 
usual  importance  in  the  present  instance,  for  the  *snot. 
reason  that  those  who  deny  freedom  to  the  will  often  conceive 
or  represent  it  as  implying  more  or  less  than  is  involved  in  the 
correct  conception  of  its  nature  and  functions.  In  so  doing, 
they  charge  upon  those  who  hold  it  conceptions  and  conclusions 
which  they  do  not  accept. 

(1)  The  will,  or  the  will  as  free,  is  not  simply  or  properly  a 
power  to  execute  or  manifest  the  desires^  or  the  so- 
called  volitions,  by  words  or  bodily  actions.  In  the  power  to  exe- 
language  usually  employed,  it  is  not  freedom  or  lib-  "I**®  **»«  ^®"" 
erty  to  do  as  one  may  please.  This  misconception 
and  misstatement  of  its  nature  arise  from  the  use  of  the  terms 
"  liberty  "  or  "  freedom  "  in  defining  the  power  to  choose.  A 
man  is  free,  it  is  urged,  when  he  is  relieved  from  some  real  or 
supposed  restraint,  and  consequently  is  at  liberty  to  do  as  he 
desires.  If  a  man  wishes  or  desires  to  move  his  limbs  or  to 
walk  abroad  ;  if  he  is  impelled  to  speak  or  manifest  or  execute 


78  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL  SCIENCE.  [§  28. 

his  feelings  or  purposes,  and  no  man  and  no  thing  resists  or 
hinders  him ;  if  he  is  not  disabled  by  disease,  or  paralysis, 
or  weakness  ;  if  he  is  not  bound  by  fetters,  or  immured  within 
a  prison,  —  he  is  at  liberty ^  or  free  to  act,  i.e.,  to  act  bodily,  as 
he  pleases  :  this  all  that  liberty  can  or  need  imply,  and  this  all 
that  the  liberty  of  will  can  signify.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  he 
is  in  any  way  hindered,  constrained,  or  confined,  he  is  not  free, 
he  is  not  at  liberty. 

Thus  Hobbes  urges:    "I  conceive  liberty  to  be  rightly  defined  in  this 

manner  :  liberty  is  the  absence  of  all  the  impediments  to 
Hobbfis.  action  that  are  not  contained  in  the  nature  and  intrinsical 

quality  of  the  agent.  As,  for  example,  the  water  is  said  to 
descend  freely,  or  to  have  liberty  to  descend,  by  the  channel  of  the  river, 
because  there  is  no  impediment  in  the  way,  but  not  across,  because  the 
banks  are  impediments.  And  though  water  cannot  ascend,  yet  men  never 
say  it  wants  the  liberty  to  ascend,  but  the  faculty  or  power,  because  the 
impediment  is  in  the  nature  of  the  water,  and  intrinsical.  So,  also,  we 
say,  he  that  is  tied  wants  the  liberty  to  go,  because  the  impediment  is 
not  in  him,  but  in  his  bands  ;  whereas  we  say  not  so  of  him  who  is  sick 
or  lame,  because  the  impediment  is  in  himself."  —  Treatise  of  Liberty  and 
Necessity,  Works,  ed.  Molesworth,  vol.  iv.  pp.  275, 276. 

Locke  says:  "  So  that  *  liberty '  is  not  an  idea  belonging  to  volition  or 

preferring,  but  to  the  person  having  the  power  of  doing,  or 
Locke  forbearing  to  do,  according  as  the  mind  shall  choose  or  direct. 

Our  idea  of  liberty  reaches  as  far  as  that  power,  and  no  far- 
ther ;  for  whenever  restraint  comes  to  check  that  power,  or  compulsion 
takes  away  that  indifferency  of  ability  on  either  side  to  act  or  to  forbearing 
acting,  then  liberty,  and  our  notion  of  it,  presently  cease." —  Essay,  book 
ii.  chap.  xxi.  §  10. 

Antony  Collins  writes:  **  I  take  man  to  have  a  truly  valuable  liberty  of 

another  kind.  He  has  a  power  to  do  as  he  wills  or  pleases. 
Statement  of  Thus  he  wills  or  pleases  to  speak  or  be  silent,  to  sit  or  to 
ling.  "     stand,  to  ride  or  to  walk,  to  go  this  way  or  that  way,  to  move 

fast  or  slow;  or,  in  fine,  if  his  will  changes  like  a  weathercock, 
he  is  able  to  do  as  he  wills  or  pleases,  unless  prevented  by  some  compul- 
sion," etc.  —  An  Inquiry  concerning  Human  Liberty,  p.  116. 

Dr.  Jonathan  Edwards  defines  "  liberty  "  thus:  **  The  plain  and  obvious 

meaning  of  the  words  'freedom'  and  'liberty,'  in  common 

Statement  of    speech,  is  the  power,  opportunity,  or  advantage  that  any  one 

ds  '    ^'^^  *^  ^°  ^  ^^^  pleases ;  or,  in  other  words,  his  being  free 

from  hinderance  or  impediment  in  the  way  of  doing  or  con- 
ducting in  any  respect  as  he  wills.    And  the  contrary  to  liberty,  whatever 


§28.]  THE   WILL  DEFINED.  79 

name  we  call  that  by,  is  a  person's  being  hindered,  or  unable  to  conduct  as 
he  will,  or  being  necessitated  to  do  otherwise."— J.  Careful  and  Strict  In- 
quiry, etc.,  part  i.  §  5. 

No  man  will  question  or  deny  that  "freedom"  and  "liberty" 
are  properly  used  in  these  applications.  In  one  sense,  and  often 
in  an  important  sense,  man  is  free  or  not  free ;  he  is  at  liberty 
or  not  at  liberty,  according  as  his  bodily  or  external  freedom  is 
limited  or  allowed ;  that  is,  as  he  has  or  has  not  power  to  act 
in  the  several  methods  supposed. 

It  by  no  means  follows,  however,  because  the  terms  "liberty  *' 
and  "freedom"  are  sometimes  applied  to  the  rela-  ^.^   ^ 

^  ^  Liberty  as 

tions  which  the  desires  or  preferences   or   choices  properly  ap- 
hold  to  their  external  manifestations  or  bodily  ac-  fntentions^as 
tions,  that  they  may  not  also  be  used  for  the  processes  to  the  ac- 
or  activities  by  which  the  purposes  or  choices  are 
formed.     The  function  of  choosing,  however,  does  not  primarily 
concern  the  activity  by  which  a  choice  is  manifested  or  made 
effective,  but  the  activity  by  which  this   choice  is  originated. 
"Whatever  freedom  or  liberty  may  be  affirmed  of  these  acts  of 
manifestation,  if  it  is  denied,  or  fails  to  be  affirmed  of  the  inner 
acts  which  are  manifested  or  expressed,  it  fails  to  cover  the 
ground  which  is  in  question.     The  definition  or  explanation 
which  is  offered  by  the  necessitarian  does  not  concern  the  same 
subject-matter  as  the  definition  or  explanation  of  his  antagonist. 
It  should  be  here  observed,  that  the  words  "liberty"  and 
"freedom,"  in   their  direct   import,   are   negative  liberty  and 
terms,  in  so  far  as  they  signify  liberation  from  or  I'reedom  neg- 
the  absence  of  something  which  is  supposed  or  as-  but  positive  ' 
serted  to-  be  present.     The  positive  and  appropriate  *"  ***^*' 
appellation  for  the  act  or  state  in  question  is  "volition,"  or  an 
act  of  will,  as  distinguished  from  a  judgment  of  the  understand- 
ing, or  an  emotion  of  the  sensibility,  or  an  impulse  of  desire. 
When  freedom  is  asserted  of  the  power  or  act  of  will,  both  are 
said  to  he  free  from  the  law  or  relation  of  necessity  ;  which  is  true 
of  all  physical  agents  and  their  phenomena,  but  is  by  no  means 


80  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL  SCIENCE.  [§28. 

excluded  from  some  classes  of  psychical  activities.    To  hold  that 
the  will  is  free,  is  to  assert  that  man  chooses,  and,  in  choosing,  is 
;  freed  or  liberated  from  any  and  all  of  those  limitations  and  con- 
straints which  pertain  to  physical  agencies, 

(2)  The  power  to  choose  is  nqt^,a  power  to  choose  without 

a  motive.     It  has  sometimes  been  represented  by 

er  to  dioosT'   '^^  antagonists,  and  even  defined  and  defended  by  its 

without  a        friends,  as  involving  an  indifference  to  all  motives  ; 
motire.  _   ,  .       •,., 

and  hence  its  liberty  is  sometimes  called  ''the  lib- 

•  erty  of  indifference.'*  This  liberty  has  often  been  conceived  as 
'  a  complete  independence  of  motives,  or  a  lofty  elevation  above 
emotions  and  impulses  of  any  kind.  This  is  an  unauthorized 
and  erroneous  conception  of  the  power  and  its  exercise.  Like 
every  other  agent  in  the  realm  of  matter  or  spirit,  the  power  of 
will  can  be  exerted  only  under  its  appropriate  conditions.  As 
man  cannot  know  except  knowable  objects  are  presented  to  his 
intellect,  and  as  he  cannot  feel  unless  objects  move  upon  and 
solicit  his  sensibility,  so  he  cannot  choose  unless  certain  objects 
are  addressed  to  his  will  through  both  the  intellect  and  sensi- 
bility. Whatever  is  known  by  the  first,  and  moves  the  second, 
inclines  the  will  toward  a  volition,  and  becomes  the  condition  of 
a  possible  choice.  But  the  motives  follow  one  law  with  the 
intellect  and  sensibilities,  and  another  law  with  the  will.  That 
their  action  upon  the  sensibility  is  necessary  action  has  been 
explained  (§  18).  In  this  the  man  is  passive,  while  in  the 
choices  of  his  will  he  is  wholly  and  emphatically  active.  He  is 
the  actor,  and  he  alone,  only  within  the  limits  imposed  by  the 
conditions  or  possible  sphere  of  action  made  by  the  moving 
forces  by  which  he  is  environed.  Similarly,  though  not  so 
strikingly,  in  sense-perception  the  sense-object,  or  stimulant,  acts 
on  the  sense-element  in  the  soul,  while  the  soul  acts  alone  in  the 
perceptive  process.  In  both  cases  the  spontaneity  of  the  soul  is 
manifested,  but  most  conspicuously  in  moral  freedom. 

The  word  ''motive'*  is  exposed  to  another  ambiguity  ;  as  it  is 
used,  on  the  one  hand,  for  whatever  moves  or  is  fitted  to  move 


§28.]  THE   WILL  DEFINED.  81 

the  sensibility,  and,  on  the  other,  as  any  object  which  is  actu- 
ally chosen,  and  is  conceived  of  as  having  shown  itself  to  be 
the  strongest  motive  by  having  been  actually  chosen,  i.e.,  by 
having,  as  it  is  said,  constrained  the  man  to  the  choice. 

With  similar  ambiguity  the  will,  the  choice,  and  the  volition 
are  said  to  be  as  the  greatest  apparent  good.     The  The  greatest 
greatest  apparent  good  may  signify  the  good  which  apparent  . 
is  actually  preferred  by  an  individual  man,  and  as 
therefore   having   become,   by  his   act  of   choice,  his    chog6n 
good,  or  as  addressing  the  sensibilities  only  before  choice,  and 
compelling  to  a  choice  by  first  appearing  as  the  best  good  to  his 
individual  comparison  or  judgment.    In  the  last  sense,  the  will, 
i.e.,  the  act  of  volition,  is  said  by  some  of  the  advocates  of 
necessity  ^' to  follow  the  last  judgment  of  the  understanding.'' 

John  Stuart  Mill  (System  of  Logic,  book  vi.  chap,  ii.)  contends  that 
there  is  an  important  difference  between  the  fatalist  and    ,  „  _..,,  ..  _ 
necessitarian:  "the  first  holding  that  the  character  is  fixed    tingnisheg 
so  that  it  cannot  be  changed  under  any  supposed  change  of   the  fatalist 
circumstances,  even  though  the  man  strongly  desire  it;  the    *"*^  necessi- 
necessitarian,  that  the  character  can  be  changed  if  we  will     **^  *"' 
that  it  should  be.  .  .  .  Man  has  to  a  certain  extent  a  power  to  alter  his 
character.  .  .  .  His  character  is  formed  by  his  circumstances  ;  but  his  own 
desire  to  mould  it  in  a  particular  way  is  one  of  those  circumstances,  and  by 
no  means  one  of  the  least  important.    We  cannot,  indeed,  directly  will  to 
be  different  from  what  we  are.  .  .  .  Neither  can  others  for  us  ;  so  that  it 
remains  true,  that,  if  we  will,  we  can  change  our  character."    This  is  pre- 
cisely the  well-known  theological  distinction  between  natural  and  moral 
ability  (cf.  Edwards's  Inquiry,  etc.,  part  iii.  §  5;  also  part  iv.  §  125),  and 
needs  only  a  brief  comment  in  the  form  of  a  question:  Does  this  *'ifwe 
will "  depend  on  circumstances,  external  or  internal,  or  may  it  originate  in 
the  something  in  the  man  which  is  more  than  circumstances,  and  what  these 
have  made  in  him  and  of  him  ? 

(3)  Nor,  again,  is  it  essential  that  there  should  be  no  motive 
to  the  contrary  of  the  object  actually  preferred.    The 

•^     •     .  rru  ^     /v.-        .  .    (3)  Does  not 

very  opposite  is  true.     The  act  of  volition  is  an  act  exclude  mo- 
of  election,  and,  as  such,  supposes  two  or  more  ob-  t'^^stothe 

^  ^  contrary. 

jects  between  which  the  election  is  made.     It  is  an 

act  of  preference ;  and  to  prefer  implies  that  one  motive  is 


82  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL  SCIENCE.  [§  28. 

chosen  to  the  exclusion  of  another,  two  or  more  being  in  both 
cases  supposed  and  required.  To  choose  is,  in  fact,  also  to 
reject,  both  in  conception  and  in  act.  To  the  conception  and 
the  act  two  motives  at  least  are  required,  and  one  must  exclude 
the  other.  When  we  say  two  motives  are  supposed  and  re- 
quired, we  do  not  thereby  aflEirm  that  more  than  one  should  be 
consciously  confronted,  but  impliedly  that  one  of  two  possible 
impulses  should  address  the  choosing  energy,  for  which  and  in 
which  the  possibility  of  the  opposite  is  implied. 

The  only  motives  conceivable,  which  can  excite  or  address  the 
will,  are  objects  in  their  moral  qualities  or  relations;  and  these, 
from  the  very  nature  of  man  as  moral,  are  necessarily  presented 
in  pairs  and  in  mutual  competition.  Moral  goodness  or  evil 
being  the  only  results  of  every  choice,  the  objects  between  which 
such  choices  are  possible  or  actual,  involve  a  choice  which  is 
morally  right  or  wrong  (cf.  §  35). 

(4)  Notapow-  (4)  The  will  is  not  a  power  to  choose  to  choose,  nor 
er  to  choose     ^  power  to  clioose  to  act.     The   assailants  of  moral 

to  choose,  nor        ■* 

to  choose  to     freedom  urge  this  as  an  objection,  and  press  the 
objection  with  no  little  plausibility  and  ingenuity. 

Thus  reasons  Dr.  Jonathan  Edwards:  "Therefore,  if  the  soul  deter- 
Edwards's  i^i^es  all  its  own  free  acts,  the  soul  determines  them  in  the 
argument  exercise  of  a  power  of  willing  and  choosing;  or,  which  is  the 
against  the  same  thing,  it  determines  those  of  choice,  it  determines  its 
infinite  own  acts  by  choosing  its  own  acts.    And  the  will  determines 

seres.  ^^^  yv\\\,  the  choice  orders  and  determines  the  choice;  and 

acts  of  choice  are  subject  to  the  decision,  and  follow  the  conduct,  of  other 
acts  of  choice.  And  therefore,  if  the  will  determines  all  its  own  free  acts, 
then  every  free  act  of  choice  is  determined  by  a  preceding  act  of  choice, 
choosing  that  act "  {Inquiry,  etc.,  part  ii.  §  1).  The  absurdity  of  this  theory, 
as  he  viewed  it,  he  sets  forth  by  the  following  well-known  vigorous  illus- 
tration :  "  If  some  learned  philosppher  who  had  been  abroad  .  .  .  should 
say  he  had  been  in  Terra  del  Fuego,  and  there  had  seen  an  animal,  which 
he  calls  by  a  certain  name,  that  begat  and  brought  forth  itself,  and  yet 
had  a  sire  and  dam  distinct  from  itself;  that  it  had  an  appetite  and  was 
hungry  before  it  had  a  being;  that  his  master,  who  led  him  and  governed 
him  at  his  pleasure,  was  always  governed  by  him  and  driven  by  him 
where  he  pleased;  that  when  he  moved  he  always  took  a  step  before 


§  29.]  THE   WILL  DEFINED.  83 

the  first  step;  that  he  went  with  his  head  first,  and  yet  always  went  tail 
foremost,  and  this  though  he  had  neither  head  nor  tail,  —  it  would  he  no 
impudence  at  all  to  tell  such  a  traveller,  though  a  learned  man,  that  he 
himself  had  no  idea  of  such  an  animal  as  he  gave  an  account  of,  and 
never  had,  and  never  would  have  "  (part  iv.  §  2). 

This  absurdity,  or/ self-contradiction,  is  called  the  absurdity 
of  the  infinite  series.  The  plausibility  of  this  objection  is 
founded  solely  on  a  rigidly  verbal  construction  of  the  popular 
language  in  which  acts  of  will  are  often  described,  as  follows : 
When  a  man  asserts  an  act  of  choice  to  be  his  own,  or  to  be 
free,  he  very  naturally  says,  "  I  chose  to  act  as  I  did  ;  "  or,  "I 
chose  my  own  action ;  "  or,  "I  chose  th^  act  because  I  chose 
it."  This  language,  strictly  construed,  would  declare  that  he 
chose  the  act  in  question,  and  not  the  object  of  the  act.  But 
this  is  clearly  impossible,  as  it  would  require  that  each  act  of 
choice  should  be  the  object  of  some  previous  act  of  choice  ;  and 
so  on,  ad  infinitum.  It  is,  moreover,  obvious,  that  no  man  can 
choose  an  act^  but  only  an  object.  It  is  equally  clear  that  the 
choice  of  an  object  must  be  itself  an  act,  the  object  having 
relations  to  every  act  which  it  solicits  or  repels,  and  therefore 
properly  and  naturally  defining  and  characterizing  such  an  act, 
but  never  yielding  to  it  its  own  place  as  an  object.  It  is  equally 
clear  that  no  man  ever  intended  more  than  this  by  this  inexact 
and  incautious  language,  which  has  been  so  skilfully  used  in  the . 
reductio  ad  ahsurdum  of  so  many  replies  on  the  side  of  necessity. 
This  argument  itself  is  easily  set  aside  by  a  correct  statement  of 
the  import  of  the  language  against  which  the  argument  is  urged. 

§  29.  Leaving  these  general  considerations  for  and  against  the 
fact  of  will  and  moral  freedom  in  choice,  we  proceed 

*  ^  Positive 

to  define,  in  a  positive  form,  the  power,  in  its  con-  views  of  the 
ditions,  its  exercise,  and  its  results.    We  consider,  —  ^*"* 

(1)  Its  conditions.     The  power  of  choosing,  like  every  other 
power  of  the  soul,  is  exercised  only  under  certain  con-   (i)  i^  itg 
ditions.     These  conditions  are  sometimes  called  the  conditions, 
objects,  and  sometimes  the  motives.     An  object  as  such,  which 


84  ELEMENTS  OF  MOBAL  SCIENCE.  [§  29. 

is  wholly  unrelated  to  the  soul,  cannot  possibly  be  a  motive. 
Whatever  may  exist,  or  whatever  may  be  true  or  knowable  of 
it,  it  cannot  be  chosen  except  as  it  is  known,  and  only  so  far 
as  it  is  known.  An  object  of  "feense,  or  memory,  or  testimony, 
or  faith,  or  imagination,  must  be  perceived,  imagined,  or 
believed  in,  by  the  man  who  can  or  will  choose  it ;  the  object 
must  also  address  some  emotion,  and  solicit  or  move  some 
desire,  either  actually  or  constructively :  in  other  words,  to  be- 
come a  condition  of  choice,  an  object  must  be  known  as,  or 
believed  to  be,  desirable.  The  judgment  of  the  mind  may  be 
true  or  false,  the  view  taken  may  be  exaggerated  or  defective ; 
but  whatever  the  object  is  taken  to  be,  or  whatever  it  is  in  "the 
mind's  view,'*  and  with  its  responsive  sensibility,  it  is  as  a  con- 
dition of  volition. 

For  an  act  of  volition,  there  must  be  two  such  objects 
actually  present  or  implied.  The  act  of  choosing,  being  an 
act  of  preference,  supposes  that  two  objects  are  present,  or 
within  reach  and  possible  notice ;  though  one  is  often,  in  the 
haste  and  impetuosity  of  volition,  utterly  overlooked  and  dis- 
regarded. 

It  is  not  intended  that  the  act  of  knowledge  supposed  must 
precede  the  act  of  feeling,  and  both  precede  the  act  of  volition. 
The  conscious  distinction  and  lapse  of  time  are  not  essential : 
all  that  is  insisted  on,  is  the  natural  precedence  of  these  two 
elements  in  the  order  of  thought,  the  conditions  being  given. 

(2)  The  act  of  choosing  is  an  act  sui  generis.  Under  the 
(2)  The  ac  Conditions  supposed,  the  soul  performs  a  special  and 
tiTity  8ui  peculiar  function  as  truly  as,  under  appropriate  cir- 
^***  *  cumstances,  it  exercises  the  functions  of  knowing, 
feeling,  and  desiring.  Each  is  related  to  the  others,  and  each, 
in  a  certain  sense  is  dependent  on  the  others ;  but  each  function 
is  peculiar  to  itself,  and  is  exerted  by  a  prerogative  and  after 
a  method  of  its  own. 

To  the  reality  and  distinctiveness  of  volition,  consciousness 
testifies  as  distinctly  as  to  the  reality  of  any  other  activity,  and 


§29.]  THE   WILL  DEFINED.  ,     .  85 

its  testimony  is  legitimate  and  decisive.  There  is,  however,  this 
difference  between  acts  of  knowledge  or  sensibility 
on  the  one  side,  and  an  act  of  will  on  the  other,  —  consciousness 
that  the  first  are  very  often  repeated  or  prolonged  g^^i*^ 
with  respect  to  a  single  object,  or  group  of  objects, 
in  order  to  a  complete  and  satisfactory  result,  while  an  act  of 
will  needs  to  be  complete  once  for  all,  that  it  may  be  carried 
into  effect- or  manifestation.  Thus,  in  order  to  the  distinct  and 
satisfying  sense-perception  of  any  object,  many  distinct  acta 
often  need  to  be  performed,  each  running  into  and  supplement- 
ing one  another.  The  same  is  true  of  other  acts  of  knowledge, 
as  in  memory  or  reasoning ;  each  being  required  to  strengthen 
and  complete  the  other.  Acts  of  emotion  and  desire  also  hold 
the  soul  in  prolonged  and  repeated  activity.  If  the  feelings 
are  pleasant,  the  soul  cherishes  and  retains  them :  if  they  are 
painful,  it  is  unable  and  sometimes  unwilling  to  be  rid  of  them, 
and  the  wishes,  fears,  and  apprehensions  which  they  occasion. 
It  is  not  so  ordinarily  with  an  act  of  will.  The  previous  con- 
ditions may  be  repeated  and  prolonged  before  a  choice  is 
reached ;  but  so  soon  as  a  decision  is  reached,  and  the  choice 
is  made,  the  soul  passes  directly  to  all  the  acts  which  are  in- 
volved in  its  realization.  The  expression  or  the  execution  of 
the  choice  calls  for  other  activities  and  other  emotions.  Men 
hug  and  fondle  and  cherish  their  joys  and  sorrows,  their  hopes 
and  fears ;  but  they  are  bent  upon  acting  out  and  fulfilling  their 
purposes  and  impulses.  This  explains  why  acts  of  knowledge 
and  feeling  are  so  much  more  familiar  to  the  consciousness 
than  acts  of  choice,  also  why  deliberation  respecting  the  means 
is  often  mistaken  for  the  act  of  choosing  ends.  An  act  of 
choice  needs  but  an  instant  for  its  perfection ;  it  is  no  sooner 
achieved,  than  it  is  displaced  by  reason  of  the  other  activities 
which  it  sets  in  motion  :  consequently  the  activity  of  volition  is 
less  prominent  in  consciousness  than  the  activities  of  knowledge 
which  the  mind  has  constant  occasion  to  notice,  and  the  contrasted 
experiences  of  emotion  which  solicit  and  compel  attention. 


86  ELEMENTS  OF  MOBAL  SCIENCE.  [§  29. 

Still  another  reason  may  be  giyen  why  this  activity  seems 

less  familiar.     Not  only  are  the  acts  more  transient 

the*  artMty     —  precluding  rather  than  inviting  repetition  —  than 

is  least  g^^^g  Qf   knowing  and  feeling,   but  they  are   less 

familiar.  ^  ^  ^ 

frequently  performed,  at  least  with  special  energy 
and  conscious  effort.  Man  chooses  but  rarely  in  the  eminent 
and  ethical  sense  of  the  word.  His  busy  activity  is  usually  ex- 
pended in  thinking  how  he  may  execute  his  chosen  4)urposes, 
or  in  the  emotions  and  desires  which  impel  to  the  execution  or 
manifestation  of  choices  already  made.  It  is  only  in  the  more 
significant  experiences  of  his  life  that  he  is  distmctly  conscious 
of  acts  of  deliberate  choice. 

Against  the  authority  of  consciousness,  it  is  sometimes  ob- 
Objection  jectcd,  that  consciousness  can  take  notice  of  acts 
that  con-  qj.  gtates  Only,  but  cannot  testify  of  a  power  in 
testifies  only  action.  From  this  it  is  inferred,  that,  inasmuch  as 
of  acts.  jjjg^j^  ^^  ^jjg  same  instant  can  choose   only  one   of 

two  objects,  it  is  impossible  that  he  should  be  conscious  that 
he  could  have  chosen  or  can  now  choose  an  object  that  he  did 
not  or  does  not  choose.  To  this  it  is  sufficient  to  reply,  that 
any  conception  of  consciousness  is  narrow  which  limits  it  to  an 
observation  of  facts  or  phenomena,  and  denies  to  it  the  belief 
of  a  power  or  capacity  to  originate  or  produce  phenomena  or 
effects.  Knowledge  of  every  kind  is  more  than  the  apprehen- 
sion of  phenomena.  In  all  its  forms,  it  includes  the  appre- 
hension of  relations  as  truly  as  of  objects  or  acts ;  and  among 
relations  that  of  power  or  causation  is  prominent.  The  con- 
sciousness of  spiritual  phenomena  would  seem  emphatically  to 
imply  activity  and  power  on  the  part  of  the  spiritual  agent. 
The  relations,  one  or  many,  which  enter  into  or  attend  the 
experience  or  observation  of  psychical  acts  or  states  are  deter- 
mined by  what  we  find  to  be  true  of  ourselves.  In  the  exercise 
of  any  power,  e.g.,  of  choosing,  we  affirm  that  man  knows 
that  he  chooses  the  object  which  he  in  fact  selects.  In  know- 
ing that  he  chooses,  he  knows  that  he  can  choose  ;  that  is,  in  the 


§29.]  THE   WILL  DEFINED.  87 

exercise  of  an  act,  he  discerns  a  manifestation  of  a  power.  But 
the  power  to  choose  is  a  power  to  deliberate  in  order  to  prefer. 
It  is  a  power  to  take  in  order  to  reject.  Man  cannot,  in  the 
nature  of  the  act  and  its  object,  be  conscious  of  the  power  to 
deliberate  and  prefer,  without  being  also  conscious  of  the  power 
to  reject. 

In  man's  conscious  experiences  of  psychical  phenomena,  the 
distinction  between  power,  action,  and  effect,  is  verbal  rather 
than  real.  Man  knows  his  own  acts  as  powers  in  exercise. 
He  is  conscious  of  an  action  as  a  power  passing  into  an  effect. 
He  also  finds  himself  impelled  to  every  kind  of  activity  of 
which  he  is  capable.  The  belief  that  he  has  the  capacity  is  a 
necessary  condition  to  his  being  impelled  to  its  use,  and  vice 
versa.  When  he  knows,  he  knows  that  he  knows,  and  knows 
what  it  is  to  know.  When  he  chooses,  he  knows  that  he 
chooses,  and  also  knows  what  it  is  to  choose.  If  the  act  of 
choosing  is  an  act  of  preference  and  rejection,  he  must  know 
that  he  has,  or  rather  is,  a  power  competent  to  this  alternative. 

On  the  other  hand,  it  is  contended  by  many  that  our  apprehension  of  the 
relation  of  causation  and  force  is  originally  gained  from  our    conception 
conscious  exercise  of  psychical  activity;  that  the  observa-    of  power  de- 
tions  of  sense  and  material  phenomena  gives  us  only  the  rela-    rived  from 
tion  of  time  in  their  before  and  after;  and  that  it  is  only    spiritual 
through  analogy  or  natural  induction  that  we  transfer  the 
relation  of  power  to  material  events,  and,  as  it  were,  project  it  into  the 
physical  universe  from  the  psychical, 

Whatever  may  be  true  of  this  theory,  the  assertion  of  Locke  remains 
true,  that  we  gain  the  clearest  idea  of  power  from  spirit.  His  words 
are  these  (Essay,  book  ii.  chap.  xxi.  §  4):  "But  yet,  if  we  will  consider 
it  attentively,  bodies  by  our  senses  do  not  afford  us  so  clear  and  distinct 
an  idea  of  active  power  as  we  have  from  reflection  or  our  own  minds." 
(§  5):  "  This  I  think  evident,  that  we  find  in  ourselves  a  power  to  begin  or 
forbear,  continue  or  end,  several  actions  of  our  minds,  and  motions  of  our 
bodies,  based  by  a  thought  or  preference  of  the  mind  ordering,  or,  as  it  were, 
commanding,  the  design,  commanding  the  doing  or  not  doing  such  or  such 
a  particular  action"  (cf.  Maine  de  Biran,  Essai  de  V Apperception  Immedi- 
ate, (Euvres,  tom.  3).  If  this  be  so,  the  inference  is  more  than  justified,  that, 
in  consciousness,  we  are  as  truly  aware  of  a  power  as  we  can  be  of  a  fact  or 
phenomenon.    It  follows,  that  if  man  is  endowed  with  the  power  to  choose, 


88  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL  SCIENCE.  [§  30. 

and  if  the  power  to  choose  must,  in  its  nature,  he  also  a  power  to  choose 
otherwise  than  he  does,  then  man  can  be  conscious  of  the  power  to  reject  as 
truly  as  of  the  power  to  take,  that  is,  to  do  that  which  he  fails  to  do  in  fact. 

§  30.  The  question,  "Why  does  the  man  choose  as  he  does?'* 
Wh  does  the  ^^  often  persistently  urged,  as  though  a  competent, 
man  choose  or  what  is  Called  a  scientific,  explanation  of  the 
event  would  require  that  it  should  be  answered  in 
terms  of  physical  causation  and  necessary  law.  The  demand 
implied  in  the  question  may  be  rejected  as  impertinent,  if  it 
implies  that  there  is  no  way  of  explaining  why  the  man  chooses 
as  he  does,  except  by  conceding  that  he  does  not  choose  at  all, 
or,  which  is  the  same  thing,  that  the  motive  under  the  law  of 
necessity  does  not  impel,  but  compels,  to  the  result  actually 
reached. 

In  common  life  the  question  is  pertinent,  having  an  intelli- 
gent import,  and  admitting  a  satisfactory  reply,  both  of  which 
are  also  entirely  consistent  with  man's  freedom  of  choice.  The 
reply  refers  us  to  a  choice  already  made,  —  a  choice  which  is 
comprehensive  and  generic,  such  as  animates  and  gives  direction 
to  the  disposition  and  character  (cf .  §  32) .  For  example,  if  a 
man  has  chosen  to  be  a  scholar  by  a  comprehensive  and  perma- 
nent act,  we  answer  the  question,  why  he  chooses  to  spend  a 
day  in  study  rather  than  in  idleness  or  relaxation,  by  referring 
to  the  permanent  choice  which  he  has  previously  made.  We 
answer  the  question  why  by  referring  a  specific  to  a  generic 
choice,  or  we  explain  his  present  or  momentary  choice  of  means 
by  his  previous  or  underlying  choice  of  an  end.  But  to  explain 
one  choice  by  another  choice,  with  which,  so  long  as  it  endures, 
it  must  have  an  actual  and  logical  connection,  is  by  no  means 
and  in  no  sense  to  deny  the  power  of  the  soul  to  choose  other- 
wise than  it  had  done  or  now  does,  whether  in  the  general  or 
the  special  sense  of  choice. 

But  this  question  why  is  finally  and  fully  answered  by  a 
reference  to  the  power  of  will  as  its  sufficient  and  ultimate  ex- 
planation.    As  we  explain  an  act  or  effect  of  knowledge  by 


§31.]  TBE   WILL  DEFINED.  89 

referring  back  to  the  soul's  power  to  know,  in  like  manner  we 
account  for  an  act  or  state  of  will  by  reference  to  the  soul's 
power  to  choose. 

So  far  as  the  objects  or  conditions  of  the  exercise  of  any 
power  enter  into  an  act,  or  are  concerned  with  it,  we  oaestion 
do  indeed  say  that  a  man  perceives  a  tree  rather  than  ambiguous, 
a  horse,  because  the  one  is  within  his  reach  or  notice,  and  the 
other  is  not.  If  it  were  urged,  that,  because  we  are  required  to 
explain  why  a  man  perceives  A  rather  than  jB,  we  ought  also 
to  explain  why  he  chooses  A  rather  than  J5,  we  reply  that  the 
analogy  does  not  hold,  for  the  reason  that  an  act  of  choice,  unlike 
an  act  of  knowledge,  is  an  act  of  choosing  between  A  and  B. 
The  proper  way  to  apply  the  analogy  in  the  case  is  to  ask  why 
a  choice  is  made  between  A  and  B  rather  than  between  C  and 
D.  To  this  question  the  appropriate  answer  would  be,  that  A 
and  B  were  present  to  his  thoughts  while  O  and  D  were  absent. 
It  being  supposed,  however,  that  A  and  B  are  present,  and  not 
C  and  i>,  the  only  explanation  why  A  or  C  is  chosen  rather  than 
B  or  Z),  is  found  in  the  power  of  the  mind  to  choose.  The 
effect,  i.e.,  the  choice,  is  accounted  for  or  explained  by  a 
reference  to  a  cause  adequate  to  its  production. 

Should  it  be  said  that  this  reference  of  an  effect  to  its  cause  is 
not  a  complete  explanation  of  the  event,  but  that  the  law  of  the 
acting  of  the  cause  must  also  be  formulated  and  given,  we  reply, 
that  if,  in  the  demand  for  such  a  law,  it  is  implied  or  assumed 
that  all  the  agencies  or  forces  in  the  universe,  spiritual  and 
material,  must  act  under  the  law  of  necessity,  this  assertion 
begs  the  question  in  discussion,  and  decides  a  priori  that  no 
laws  or  relations  can  be  recognized,  except  such  as  control  or 
direct  physical  force. 

§  31.  The  careful  reader  will  not  fail  to  notice  that  the  terms  "  will "  and 
"volition"  (respectively,  agent  and  action,  cause  and  effect) 
are  used  by  us  in  meanings  which  differ  more  or  less  con-    Marions 

S6I1S68  of  TTlU 

siderably  from  those  which  are  current  in  not  a  few  modern    youti^n  gj^  ' 

discussions  respecting  the  possibility  and  conceivableness  of 

a  responsible  will  and  its  relation  to  the  doctrines  of  moral  responsibility 


90  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL  SCIENCE.  [§  31. 

and  the  conservation  of  force.  In  the  most  of  these  discussions,  even  those 
which  are  most  conservative  of  ethical  terminology  (cf.  W.  B.  Cabpenter, 
Mental  Physiology,  New  York,  1876),  and  more  manifestly  in  the  treatises  of 
such  writers  as  H.  Maudsley,  A.  Bain,  G.  H.  Lewes,  Herbert  Spencer,  and 
Leslie  Stephen,  the  will  is  treated  as  the  proximate  originator  of  what  are 
termed  actions  ;  and  an  action  is  conceived  of  as  either  a  corporeal  move- 
ment of  some  sort,  including,  or  as  some  muscular  or  psycho-physical  ante- 
cedent to,  a  conspicuous  result.  Or,  if  by  some  writers  the  psychical  or 
mental  element  is  adverted  to,  it  is  regarded  as  but  a  transient  phase  of 
the  changing  energy,  probably  the  one  nearly  proximate  to  some  effect 
adjudicated  by  the  conscience  or  the  courts.  In  short,  every  thing  impul- 
sive to  action,  whether  spiritual  or  material,  is  regarded  as  equally  volun- 
tary, and  referred  to  the  will ;  the  will  being  regarded  as  an  intelligent 
force  competent  for  bodily  action. 

Dr.  Carpenter  has  the  naiveU  to  define  "  *  will,'  or  *  volition,'  as  a  deter- 
minate effort  to  carry  out  a  purpose  previously  conceived  "  (book  i.  chap, 
ix.).  By  very  many  writers,  and  in  common  speech,  the  term  "  will-power  " 
is  used  as  a  synonyme  for  an  energetic  or  tenacious  impulse  to  corporeal  or 
spiritual  action  of  any  kind.  It  is  not  surprising,  that,  with  this  broad  and 
varied  signification  of  the  import  of  the  agent,  its  function  should  be  made 
to  include  the  muscular  and  the  nervous  as  truly  as  the  spiritual  and  the 
psychical ;  and  also,  that,  while  there  is  a  general  recognition  of  the  will- 
power as  the  condition  of  responsibility,  this  should  be  loosely  affirmed  of 
both  the  psychical  and  psycho-physiological,  and  even  of  the  muscular  ex- 
periences. Meanwhile,  its  special  character  and  limitations  are  overlooked. 
Those  who  find  the  will  everywhere  in  men  and  animals,  and  in  all  the  ac- 
tivities of  both,  in  effect  find  it  nowhere  as  a  moral  and  responsible  agent. 

As  a  consequence,  its  special  character  as  a  spiritual  force  fails  to  be  set 
forth  in  appropriate  relief.  Much  has  been  said,  in  the  dis- 
The  force  cussions  referred  to,  of  the  supposed  incompatibility  of  the 

material'  doctrine  of  a  responsible  will  with  the  doctrine  of  the  con- 

servation or  persistence  of  force;  as  though  the  term  "force  " 
could  possibly  have  the  same  sense  when  applied  to  the  moral  will  and 
any  mere  impulse,  whether  mechanical  or  psychical.  A  moment's  reflec- 
tion would  seem  to  be  sufficient  to  show  that  no  difficulty  can  possibly 
arise,  except  to  those  who  assume  that  all  psychical  phenomena  are  sub- 
ject to  the  laws  which  hold  good  of  material  or  nervous  agencies,  in 
respect  to  what  is  called  the  quantum  of  energy,  as  shown  in  kinetic 
phenomena.  As  against  this  view,  the  position  has  been  taken  by  some 
writers,  and  urged,  that  the  force  of  will  is  directive^  and  not  selective.  It 
may  be  questioned  whether  a  force  could  be  simply  directive  of  kinetic 
which  was  not  in  some  sense  kinetic;  i.e.,  whether  a  directive  force  must 
not  be  also  kinetic  between  two  directions  of  equivalent  physical  agents. 
If  selective,  and  in  no  sense  kinetic,  it  must  be  hyper-physical,  and  therefore 
removed  beyond  the  application  of  the  law  of  correlation.    It  would  also 


§31.]  THE  WILL  DEFINED.  91 

follow,  that  even  in  the  lowest  forms  of  animal  existence,  wherever  there 
is  regulated  motion,  there  is  something  like  mind;  that  is,  something  that 
correlation  or  persistence  cannot  account  for. 

Mind-force  of  a  very  high  type,  however,  does  not  of  itself  imply  moral 
freedom,  or  will.     Feeling  and  instinct,  hope  and  fear,  delib- 
eration and  resolve,  energy  and  passion,  do  not  imply  or  in-    Spiritual 
volve  freedom,  for  the  reason,  that  men  might  be  completely        ''^  "^ 
furnished  for  various  and  splendid  activities  without  the    f^Q^, 
power  of  choice  between  impulses,  and  the  objects  which 
are  related  to  mere  impulses.    Each  one  of  these  experiences  might  be  con- 
ceived as  occurring,  in  some  sort,  without  moral  freedom.    The  moment  this 
is  introduced  or  superadded,  it  gives  to  all  of  these  capacities  a  new  charac- 
ter, and  in  a  sense  makes  man  responsible  for  them  all,  even  for  those 
events  which  occur  under  the  laws  of  nature,  so  far  as  the  element  of 
freedom  can  be  traced  in  controlling  and  directing  them.    Strictly  speak- 
ing, man  is  responsible  only  for  his  volitions,  and,  even  in  tliese,  for  that 
element  only  which  is  spiritual  and  voluntary  ;  yet  practically  he  is  respon- 
sible for  every  mental,  emotional,  and  corporeal  effect  which  might  have 
been  foreseen  as  dependent  on  the  psychical  states  into  which  he  brings 
himself  by  his  will. 


92  ELEMENTS  OF  MOBAL  SCIENCE.  [§  32. 


CHAPTER  V. 

EFFECT   OF   VOLITION,  —  CHOICE,  DISPOSITION,  AND 
CHARACTER. 

The  reality  and  possibility  of  the  act  of  choosing  being 
established  by  consciousness,  and  with  it  the  existence  of  the 
faculty  of  will,  we  proceed  next,  — 

§  32.   To  the  effect  or  result  of  the  act  of  volition.     It  will  be 

remembered,  as  has  already  been  observed,  that 
effect  of  an  psychical  activities  pass  instantaneously  into  prod- 
act  of  Toii-      ucts  or  effects.    The  lapse  of  time  is  usually  unnoticed. 

As  the  agent  is  psychical,  so  is  the  action  and  its 
effects :  the  doing  is  at  once  a  deed ;  the  activity,  whether  of  think- 
ing (The  Human  Intellect,  §  52),  or  feeling,  or  choosing,  is,  or 
becomes  at  once,  a  thought,  an  emotion,  or  a  choice.  This  is 
pre-eminently  true  of  acts  of  the  will.  The  fact  has  already 
been  noticed,  and  the  reasons  have  been  given,  why  any  single 
exercise  of  this  power  is  brief  in  duration,  and  attracts  com- 
paratively little  attention  (§  29).  But  if  consciousness  takes 
little  notice  of  the  acts  of  choosing,  as  acts  or  operations,  its 
knowledge  of  their  effects  is  distinct  and  vivid.  Whatever 
question  there  may  be  as  to  the  reality  and  nature  of  the  activi- 
ties of  will,  there  can  be  no  question  as  to  the  importance  and 
energy  of  their  effects.  It  happens  every  day,  that,  according 
as  the  choice  of  one  or  another  man  is  thus  or  thus,  the  destinies 
of  multitudes  are  determined  for  good  or  for  evil.  The  stroke 
of  a  pen,  the  decision  of  a  ruler,  the  vote  of  a  majority  of 
his  counsellors,  or  of  a  Parliament  or  a  Legislature,  may  be 
followed  by  a  train  of  consequences  freighted  with  good  or  evil 


§32.]  EFFECT  OF  VOLITION.  93 

to  multitudes.  The  choice  of  an  instant  may  also  bring  to  the 
man  who  makes  it,  consequences  to  himself  and  within  himself, 
which  are  as  conspicuous  and  important. 

Our  first  attention  is  claimed  for  those  effects  which  remain 
within  the  man's  own  being,  and  which  modify  and 
energize  the  springs  of  his   subsequent   activities,   within  the 
We  observe,  then,  that  the  act  of  choosing  brings  the  ^^^^'  ^  ^t**® 

_  .       .  ^    ,     .  rr^,  .      of  choice. 

man  into,  and  leaves  him  m,  a  state  of  choice.  This 
involves  a  new  condition  of  thought  and  feeling,  and,  it  may 
be,  of  impulse  to  external  or  bodily  activity.  By  it  the  man 
passes  into  a  new  attitude  of  intellectual  judgment,  which  often 
modifies  his  individual  opinions  in  respect  to  any  subject  which 
is  nearly  or  remotely  related  to  the  estimates  or  purposes  which 
his  will  has  accepted.  Whatever  facts  or  truths  are  favorable 
will  be  welcomed,  retained,  and  cherished :  whatever  are  unfa- 
vorable may  be  repelled,  and  put  out  of  sight.  If  the  choice  is 
permanent,  and  involves  many  special  activities  of  thinking,  it 
becomes  a  permanent  underlying  force,  which  forms  the  intel- 
lectual habits,  moulds  the  associative  power,  rules  the  memory, 
elevates  the  imagination,  and  inspires  the  higher  functions  of 
thought  and  reasoning.  A  single  controlling  purpose  apparently 
effected  in  an  hour  has  wakened  into  life  a  sluggard  intellect, 
and  seemed  to  inspire  it  with  the  force  and  energy  of  genius. 
The  history  of  many  a  listless  and  idling  youth  has  told  us  of 
some  turning-point  in  his  career,  when  a  new  purpose,  brief  but 
energetic,  has  transformed  his  intellectual  life. 

The  emotions  undergo  changes  still  more  obvious^  and  often  no 
less  striking,  both  singly  and  in  classes.  By  the  Effects  upon 
very  nature  and  as  the  effect  of  choice,  certain  natu-  the  emotions, 
ral  sensibilities  and  desires  are  allowed  and  stimulated,  and 
others  are  disallowed  and  repressed.  The  first  are  kindled  at 
once  to  a  flame,  so  soon  as  they  feel  the  impelling  impulse  and 
favoring  atmosphere  which  the  preferring  act  of  will  sets  free. 
The  favored  sensibilities  are  henceforth  given  up  to  the  natural 
and  necessary  influences  of  the  objects  which  are  fitted  to  excite 


94  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL  SCIENCE.  [§  33. 

them,  and  they  flash  into  the  intense  and  peculiar  energy  of 
permitted  and  sanctioned  desires.  The  sensibilities  which  are 
set  aside  are  held  in  neglect  or  restraint  whenever  they  solicit 
a  response  from  the  sentient  nature,  or  come  into  competition 
with  their  rivals.  The  act  of  choice  does  not  destroy  or  directly 
weaken  the  soul's  natural  capacities  to  feel  in  the  several 
methods  which  its  environment  is  fitted  to  stimulate  or  gratify ; 
but  these  are  persistently  held  in  restraint  and  comparative 
inactivity.  By  natural  consequence  their  relative  energy  grows 
weaker  by  lack  of  use  and  in  contrast  with  those  rivals  which 
have  air  and  exercise,  or  room  and  play. 

We  consider  next  those  special  actions  of  body  or  soul  which 
simply  execute  the  purposes.  Upon  these  the  new  condition  of 
the  will  acts  like  an  elastic  coil,  impelling  them  to  their  work 
with  a  certain  and  constant  energy.  We  have  already  seen 
(§  ) ,  that,  without  the  faculty  or  the  activity  of  the  will,  man 
could  act  with  mind  and  heart  and  body,  by  labor,  gestures, 
speech,  and  signs,  simply  because  thought  awakens  emotion, 
and  emotion  kindles  deske,  and  desire  impels  to  action.  But 
when  the  will  interacts  with  these  impulses,  every  choice  which 
is  reached,  whether  brief  or  enduring,  whether  hasty  or  deliber- 
ate, so  long  as  it  lasts,  must  necessarily  regulate  the  actions 
by  repressing  and  allowing  the  desires  which  are  their  impel- 
ling springs.  "Appetite,''  says  Hooker,  "is  the  will's  solici- 
tor; but  will  is  the  appetite's  controller."  The  will  does  not 
directly  impel  to  action,  but  it  regulates  the  actions  by  deciding 
which  impulses  shall  prevail. 

§  33.  The  effects  of  choice  may  be  more  satisfactorily  illus- 
trated by  two  classes  of  examples. 

(1)  Let  the  choice  be  brief  in  continuance,  demanding  imme- 
diate  attention,    and   involving   comparatively  few 

(i;  Choices 

special  acts  for  its  fulfilment.     Let  it  concern  an  that  are 
object  near  or  present,  as  the  possession  of  a  fruit  8pe®^"y  e^®- 
which  hangs  on  a  tree,  or  the  removal  to  a  place  not 
far  distant.     As  soon  as  such  an  object  is  chosen,  the  mind  is 


§33.]  EFFECT  OF  VOLITION.  95 

in  a  state  of  choice,  of  brief  emotion  indeed,  but  still  requiring 
time.  This  state  of  will  manifests  itself  by  the  immediate  and 
exclusive  occupation  of  the  mind  with  the  object  chosen  and 
the  acts  which  are  necessary  to  achieve  it.  The  feelings  which 
respond  to  its  attractions  are  at  once  kindled  into  activity,  and 
the  man  is  impelled  directly  to  all  the  activities  of  thought  and 
bodily  movement  which  are  required  for  accomplishing  his  pur- 
pose. Unless  this  purpose  is  abandoned  by  a  subsequent  choice, 
or  the  realization  of  it  is  deferred,  the  man  remains  in  this  vol- 
untary state  or  condition  until  the  end  is  attained. 

(2)  Let  the  object  be  of  a  different  character,  as  the  posses- 
sion of  wealth,  or  power,  or  learning,  or  ease.     Such 

'        ^  '  ^'  (2)  Choices 

an  object  is  general  in  character,  remote  in  time,   that  are 

and  requires  many  series  of  activities  for  its  achieve-  ^^^^^^ }^ 

^  "^  execution. 

ment.  It  will  not  be  denied  that  the  purpose  to  be 
rich,  powerful,  or  learned,  may  be  formed  in  an  hour,  and  with 
such  energy  as  not  to  need  to  be  formally  renewed,  and  never 
to  be  relaxed  and  renounced.  In  such  a  case  we  have  a  sub- 
jective effect  produced  by  a  single  act  of  volition  which  controls 
a  series  of  thoughts,  feelings,  and  external  acts  which  continue 
for  years,  or  perhaps  for  a  lifetime,  till  "  the  ruling  purpose  is 
strong  in  death." 

John  Foster  (Essay  on  Decision  of  Character)  gives  an  example  of  a  young 
man  who  had  wasted  a  large  inheritance  by  a  course  of  reck- 
less profligacy.  He  found  himself  soon  after  on  a  height 
which  overlooked  the  large  estates  in  land  which  had  once  been  his  own. 
As  the  result  of  his  reflections,  he  resolved  that  he  would  recover  them 
again.  Turning  away,  he  embraced  the  first  opportunity  to  earn  a  shilling 
by  assisting  to  deliver  a  load  of  coal,  and,  persevering  in  his  determined 
adherence  to  his  new  purpose,  died  a  miser.  Examples  similar  to  this, 
though  not  so  striking,  are  constantly  occurring.  They  are  not  infrequent 
in  the  history  of  educated  men.  Dr.  Paley,  when  at  the  university,  for  a 
considerable  time  led  an  indulgent  and  jovial  life,  giving  brilliant  proofs 
now  and  then  of  extraordinary  genius.  One  day  a  companion,  finding  him 
lounging  in  bed,  surprised  him  by  a  remonstrance  to  this  effect,  "  If  I  had 
your  gifts,  I  would  not  abuse  them  as  you  do."  The  suggestion  was 
the  occasion  of  a  new  purpose,  which  to  him  was  the  beginning  of  a  new 
life. 


96  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL  SCIENCE.  [§  34. 

It  is  conceivable  that  the  object  permanently  chosen  may  be 
Choices  of  chosen  simply  for  its  subjective  worth,  as  learning 
Ideal  excel-  for  its  own  Sake,  or  artistic  skill,  or  freedom  from 
labor  and  care.  It  is  conceivable  that  the  object  of 
choice  should  be  the  realization  of  some  possible  subjective 
perfection  in  intellect  or  sensibility,  in  other  words,  that  ideal 
excellence  should  be  the  supreme  or  controlling  end  of  one's 
desire  and  activity.  This  ideal  excellence  may  involve  moral 
relations  :  indeed,  it  always  must  with  man.  In  respect  to  each 
and  all  of  these  objects,  whether  they  are  near  or  remote,  and 
whether  their  realization  involves  more  or  fewer  thoughts,  emo- 
tions, and  actions,  the  man  passes  by  his  act  into  a  state  of 
choice  as  its  effect. 

If  the  object  is  ideal,  and  implies  some  standard  for  realiza- 
Choiceg  that  *^^°'  especially  if  it  consciously  involves  relations  of 
affect  the  duty,  this  state  of  choice  becomes  the  most  impor- 
tant  element  of  character.  Character,  xapatrijp, 
literally  a  mark,  a  distinctive  sign,  then  a  distinctive  nature  or 
peculiarity,  has  come  in  modern  times  to  designate  the  control- 
ling or  prominent  peculiarity  of  a  man,  pre-eminently  that  by 
which  a  man's  individuality  is  distinguished,  and  usually  in- 
volving more  or  less  distinctly  moral  relationships.  So  far  as 
this  controlling  purpose  is  voluntary  in  its  origin  and  continu- 
ance, so  far  do  we  accord  praise  or  blame  to  ourselves  and 
others  for  what  we  are  in  character  as  moral.  Indeed,  it  is  only 
in  the  voluntary  element  of  character  that  we  recognize  moral 
worth  or  worthiness,  or  the  opposite. 

§  34.  When  the  effect  of  an  act  of  choice  continues,  and 
becomes  relatively  fixed,  we  call  it  **  a  state,"  because  it  need 
not  be  changed  or  renewed,  and  because,  as  permanent,  it  is 
contrasted  with  the  many  special  acts  to  which  it  impels. 

(1)  The  act  originating  this  voluntary  and  responsible  ele- 
ment in  character  may  be  conceived  as  never  repeated.  In 
such  a  case  the  entire  energy  of  the  man,  so  far  as  this  purpose 
is  concerned,  would   be   expended   in   executing   its   behests. 


§34.]  EFFECT  OF  VOLITION.  97 

The  processes  of  thought  and  feeling  and  external  action  would 
all  be  moulded  by  the  controlling  force  of  this  uni-    .^.  ^^^^ 
form  and  unchanging  spring  of  action.     They  not  choices  may 
only  will,  but  they  must^  be  conformed  to  its  press-  j^^^^^  j,e 
ure.     With   a  given   voluntary   purpose,   the   man  repeated. 
must  think  and   feel  and  act  as  the   joint  action  of   the  two 
forces  of  his  being  permit  and  require,  i.e.,  the  necessary  and 
the  free  (cf.  §  27). 

In  our  theory,  indeed,  we  distinguish  these  forces  as  twofold. 
The  laws  of  man's  intellectual  and  emotional  nature  are  neces- 
sary. The  laws  of  external  activity  under  the  impulses  of 
thought  and  desire  are  equally  fixed.  The  voluntary  activity 
only  is  free.  Within  this  variety  of  relations  there  is  room 
enough  for  us  to  ask  and  to  answer  the  question  which  has 
already  been  adverted  to,  —  Why  does  a  man  think,  feel,  and  act 
as  he  does? —  and  to  ask  and  answer  it  in  more  than  one  sense. 
Even  if  we  limit  our  attention  to  the  involuntary  in  man,  we  find 
abundant  and  satisfactory  answers  to  our  question  in  his  natural 
constitution  and  circumstances,  in  his  physical  or  psychical 
nature,  and  in  the  agencies  to  which  he  has  been  subjected,  and 
by  which  his  habits  have  been  formed.  We  may  also  find  an 
answer,  in  part,  in  his  voluntary  states,  which,  though  free  in 
their  production,  may  be  assumed  as  fixed  and  constant  forces, 
which,  as  long  as  they  continue,  operate  with  the  regularity 
and  necessity  of  physical  agencies. 

(2)  The  activity  which  originates  the  voluntary  and  responsible 
in  character  may  be  repeated  again  and  again,  and   ^g)  The  act 
as  the  result,  the  character  itself  may  be  reversed,   ^^y  ^e  re- 

^.  T    ^  peated  more 

weakened,  or  made  more  energetic.  Let  us  sup-  or  less 
pose  the  controlling  motive  to  be  the  love  of  power,  frequently. 
Let  a  ruler  be  called  on  to  sign  the  death-warrant  of  one  whom 
he  fears  or  hates  as  an  actual  or  possible  rival,  as  Elizabeth, 
in  the  case  of  Mary  of  Scotland,  or  Napoleon,  in  that  of  the 
Due  d'Enghien.  The  decision  of  this  special  question  may 
involve  the  increased  or  weakened  energy  of  that  voluntary 


98  ELEMENTS  OF  MOBAL   SCIENCE.  [§  34. 

love  of  power  which  had  been  cherished  by  the  ruler  for  years. 
As  he  decides  this  individual  question,  which  tests  his  ruling 
passion  perhaps  as  never  before,  so  will  he  retain  or  abandon, 
so  will  he  weaken  or  strengthen,  the  purpose  which  has  pre- 
viously controlled  his  life.  In  cases  less  striking  than  these, 
a  man,  by  single  purposes  and  acts,  may  renew  or  modify  the 
master  purpose  which  underlies  and  constitutes  his  character. 
It  is  only  when  a  man  thinks  and  feels  and  acts  in  mechanical 
and  thoughtless  obedience  to  purposes  already  formed,  that  the 
responsibility  seems  to  be  thrown  back  upon  previous  activities 
of  deliberation  and  choice.  But  even  in  such  cases  there  is 
a  voluntary  consent,  of  which  he  is  fully  conscious,  to  act  in 
heedless  or  passionate  obedience  to  habit  and  impulse.  For 
this  reason,  it  is  true  that  every  man  is  perpetually  renewing  his 
voluntary  activity.  In  the  fully  developed  man,  there  is  not  only 
the  more  or  less  distinctly  conscious  apprehension  of  that  in- 
dividual identity  which  is  at  the  basis  of  all  spiritual  activity, 
and  is  the  condition  of  personal  life,  but  a  more  or  less  posi- 
tive conscious  consent  to  that  identity  of  the  voluntary  purpose 
which  constitutes  his  moral  life. 

Though  a  permanent  purpose  may  possibly  be  renounced  and 
.   ^       ,        reversed,  the  tendencies  towards  its  perpetuation  are 

A  state  of  i      f 

choice  tends  many  and  strong.  "Every  choice,"  says  Goethe, 
to  perpetuity.  ,^  .^  ^^^  eternity."  First  to  choose  for  the  present, 
and  indefinitely,  is  in  effect  to  choose  for  all  the  future.  If 
the  choice  i^  for  a  limited  period,  and  the  man  fancies  he 
will  reverse  or  abandon  his  choice  when  this  limit  shall  be 
reached,  he  does  this  under  the  illusion  that  the  motives 
which  he  now  accepts  may  assume  another  aspect  when  he 
confronts  them  anew.  But  he  has  no  ground  for  believing  this. 
The  motives  to  which  he  yields  at  present,  with  the  implied 
purpose  to  set  them  aside  in  the  future,  are  none  the  less,  but 
the  more,  likely  to  re-appear,  with  a  similar  flattering  proposal 
for  another  future,  and  thus,  by  their  own  momentum,  to  go 
on  forever. 


§34.]  EFFECT  OF  VOLITION.  99 

The  sentiment  of  Goethe  is  not  the  rhapsody  of  poetry,  but  the  sobriety 
of  fact.  Every  moral  volition  is  a  choice  of  some  individual  and  concrete 
object  with  definite  moral  relations.  No  man  chooses  a  generic  object  as 
such,  but  a  single  object  as  representing  a  class  in  its  likeness  to  all.  In 
choosing  an  individual  object,  he  must  choose  all  the  objects  which  re- 
semble it.  He  also  chooses  for  all  time,  even  when  he  fondly  persuades 
himself  that  he  chooses  only  for  the  present.  But,  even  if  he  does,  he  can- 
not make  over  the  future  ;  for  by  his  present  choice  he  puts  it  one  step  in 
advance  of  the  present.  And  thus  it  may  forever  remain,  like  the  shadow, 
which  flees  before  us,  but  which  we  never  can  overtake. 

Second,  simple  continuance  in  a  state  of  choice  gives  addi- 
tional energy  to  the  motives  which  originally  prevailed.  So 
long  as  any  voluntary  state  cofitinues,  it  presses  into  its  service 
all  the  intellectual  and  emotional  activities  of  the  man.  It  will 
hold  before  the  intellect  the  motives  which  it  first  accepted,  to 
the  exclusion  of  those  which  it  set  aside.  The  facts  and  reasons 
which  might  counteract  or  overbear  their  influence  are  likely 
to  be  excluded,  or,  if  apprehended,  not  to  be  attended  to.  It 
follows,  that,  simply  by  force  of  occupancy  or  possession,  the 
motives  once  admitted  to  control  are,  other  things  being  equal, 
likely  to  remain.  The  man  who  has  made  a  choice  is  also 
biassed  by  his  desire  to  defend  it.  He  is  tempted  to  make  the 
most  of  the  reasons  for,  and  to  depreciate  those  against  it.  His 
feelings  also  are  certain  to  be  warmly  enlisted  in  behalf  of 
the  one,  and  against  the  other.  In  the  progress  of  the  soul's 
activities  of  thought  and  feeling,  it  necessarily  entangles  itself 
with  a  more  and  more  complicated  network  of  favorable  or  un- 
favorable associations  gathered  from  the  words  and  looks  and 
actions  and  events  which  have  been  colored  by  the  commanding 
purpose  which  has  long  held  possession  of  the  inner  life.  Habits 
of  thinking  and  feeling  mature  their  fatal  or  hopeful  facilities 
in  the  service  of  the  dominant  purpose.  Practically  considered, 
nothing  is  so  strong,  and  certain  to  continue,  as  a  controlling 
choice  which  has  taken  a  deep  and  extended  hold  of  the  inner 
life,  and  has  woven  around  the  chosen  objects  of  its  devotion 
a  network  of  fond  and  fixed  associations.     In  theory,  to  part 


100  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL   SCIENCE,  [§  35. 

with  it  is  the  easiest  and  simplest  thing  conceivable :  in  fact, 
it  is  the  hardest  thing  to  be  achieved. 

§  35.  The  underlying  and  permanent  purposes  are  the  proper 
Permanent  ^^^  conspicuous  objects  of  moral  approval  and  dis- 
purposes  ob-    approval.     Not  that  the  special  acts  and  emotions 

jects  of  moral        ,  .   ,       i         .i  .     -..-v.  .     «       ,,  . 

approval  and  which  obey  them  are  indifferent,  for  they  never  can 
disapproval,  ^j^.  Morally,  however,  they  are  of  consequence  only 
so  far  as  they  renew  and  manifest  the  prevailing  purpose  within. 
So  long  as  a  man  retains  the  purpose  in  question,  he  must  act 
and  think  and  feel  as  it  requires.  To  change  his  thoughts  and 
feelings,  he  must  change  or  modify  —  i.e.,  weaken  or  strengthen 
—  his  controlling  voluntary  impillses.  Conversely,  inasmuch  as 
by  special  acts  he  re-affirms  the  inner  purpose,  by  the  same 
rule  he  may  change  that  purpose  through  some  special  and 
single  activity.  The  ambitious  or  avaricious  purpose  may  not 
only  be  weakened  or  yield  when  strained  and  tested  by  some 
single  act  of  cruelty  or  selfishness  which  it  exacts  and  involves, 
but  it  may  be  abandoned  altogether  in  what  seems  to  be  a  subor- 
dinate volition. 

Thus  far  have  we  traced  single  acts  and  emotions  to  a  more 
comprehensive  and  enduring  voluntary  state,  which 

Why  does  the  ^  »  J  ' 

man  choose  wc  Call  character,  as  to  the  purpose  to  be  rich, 
The"uestion  P^^^^rful,  or  learned.  "We  seek  an  explanation  for 
admits  of  dif.  each  of  thcsc  acts  or  emotions  by  asking,  "  Wliy  did 
the  man  think,  feel,  or  act  as  he  did?  '*  And  we  find 
our  answer  in  this  characteristic  purpose  which  lies  beneath  or 
behind.  We  are  led  to  another  step:  we  ask  again,  "Why 
did  he  make  the  permanent  choice  which  marks  and  constitutes 
his  character?  i.e.,  why  did  he  choose  to  be  rich,  or  great,  or 
learned  ?  **  We  at  last  reach  those  two  comprehensive  and  alter- 
nate springs  of  action,  or  states  of  the  will,  which  are  contrasted 
as  morally  good  or  evil,  into  which  all  the  responsible  choices  are 
divided.  These  purposes  are  within  the  reach  of  every  man. 
They  are  necessarily  formed  by  every  man.  They  extend  to 
all  the  other  conscious  movements.    They  concern  every  activity 


§35.]  EFFECT  OF  VOLITION.  101 

to  which  moral  praise  or  blame  can  be  ascribed.  Though  they 
are  generic  and  comprehensive,  and  seem  at  first  to  belong  only 
to  the  character  as  something  deep  and  remote,  they,  for  that 
very  reason,  reach  to  the  minutest  activity  of  the  inner  and 
the  outer  man,  imparting  to  it  moral  worth,  or  the  opposite. 

The  other  activities  of  the  mind  and  heart,  considered  apart 
from  this  supreme  purpose,  obey  the  law  of  necessary  causation. 
That  is,  let  the  moral  purposes  of  a  man  be  so  and  so  ;  let  him 
be  endowed  with  a  given  constitution  in  body,  intellect,  and 
sensibility ;  let  him  be  surrounded  by  given  circumstances  of 
physical  and  social  culture,  and  be  confronted  by  certain  occa- 
sions or  objects  of  desire,  —  he  will  necessarily  choose  in  a  given 
way.  The  supreme  moral  purpose,  sometimes  miscalled  the 
motive,  and  sometimes  the  intention,  is  that  alone  for  which  man 
is  eminently  responsible.  In  every  other  activity  apart  from 
this  highest  relation,  he  is  under  the  law  of  necessity.  In  this 
relation,  and  what  it  affects,  and  in  this  alone,  is  he  free.  But 
this  relation  is  intertwined  with  every  other,  and  modifies  every 
other. 

It  follows  that  the  so-called  liberty  of  will  pertains  to  moral 
relations  and  to  these  alone.    In  every  other  applica- 
tion, the  so-called  will  —  i.e. ,  the  power  to  deliberate,   ^jn  pertains 
to  desire,  and  to  act  —  is  under  the  law  of  cause  and  *<>  ™®''*^  ^®" 

lations  only. 

effect.  But  inasmuch  as  it  is  impossible,  that,  in  every 
one  of  these  acts,  moral  relations  should  not  be  involved ^  we  say 
of  the  will  simply  that  it  is  morally  free  in  all  its  activities  and 
their  results.  It  is  most  important  to  remember,  however,  that 
the  only  proper  liberty  of  will  is  its  moral  liberty,  and  that  moral 
liberty  is  defined  as  the  liberty  to  choose  when  moral  relations 
or  moral  qualities  are  concerned  in  our  volitions.  Of  the  char- 
acter in  every  other  relation,  we  may  say  it  is  under  physical  as 
contrasted  with  other  agencies,  and  obeys  the  laws  which  per- 
tain to  such  forces,  including  those  of  heredity,  environment,  of 
development  and  evolution,  so  far  as  these  forces  and  their  laws 
can  be  ascertained.     It  is  all  the  same  whether  the  agencies 


102  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL  SCIENCE.  [§  35. 

are  physical  or  psychical :  so  far  as  they  are  under  fixed  laws 
they  are  subject  to  the  law  of  necessity.  The  fact  that  the  free 
personality  of  man,  or  the  free  personality  of  the  supreme  rea- 
son, directs  and  controls  these  forces,  does  not  alter  the  nature 
of  the  forces  themselves,  or  the  laws  of  their  special  activity,  or 
the  effects  which  they  tend  to  produce.  With  these  as  its 
subject-matter,  the  philosophy  of  history,  political  and  social 
science,  and  what  is  generally  known  as  the  knowledge  of 
human  nature,  have  ample  scope  and  supreme  authority  under 
the  limitations  which  moral  freedom  imposes  upon  them  (§  72). 


§  36.]  C'H^B^Cr^iJ  AS  NATURAL  AND  VOLUNTABY.   103 


CHA] 

THE  CHARACTER  AS  NATURAL  AND  VOLUNTARY. 

§  36.  We  were  prompted  to  investigate  the  will  by  consider- 
ing the  sensibilities  as  affected  by  its  presence  and  pj^y  ^,^a 
its  agency.  "We  revert  again  to  the  distinction  with  ^®*'* 
which  we  began,  between  the  sensibilities  as  natural  and  volun- 
tary (§  23) .  The  distinction  may  be  illustrated  by  the  emotion  of 
pity  as  exemplified  in  the  compassionate  and  the  unfeeling. 
Pity  as  a  natural  emotion  may  be  felt  by  the  miser,  and  cannot 
but  be  felt  by  him,  so  long  as  his  attention  is  held  to  a  scene  of 
suffering.  In  one  sense  it  is  the  same  emotion  as  when  it  con- 
trols the  man  who  yields  his  whole  being  to  its  moving  impulses  : 
in  another  it  is  as  diverse  as  can  well  be  conceived.  In  the 
one  case  it  is  the  working  of  nature,  which  the  man  can  neither 
eradicate  nor  wholly  repress :  in  the  other  it  is  the  cherished 
and  welcome  inmate  of  the  heart,  and  it  flows  from  a  fountain 
that  is  constant  and  full. 

Physical  fear  is  common  to  the  coward  and  the  brave.  It  is 
impossible  for  any  man  to  set  aside  or  prevent  the  emotion 
which  is  the  necessary  product  of  anticipated  evil,  so  long  as  the 
evil  is  thought  of.  It  is  no  paradox  to  say  that  the  bravest  man 
may  be  in  his  nature  the  most  susceptible  to  fear.  Indeed,  the 
material  out  of  which  the  highest  forms  of  voluntary  courage 
are  wrought  must  be  a  highly  sensitive  soul.  More  than  one 
commander  distinguished  for  personal  courage  would  confess 
that  he  never  went  into  an  engagement  without  physical  tremors 
such  as  only  a  determined  purpose  could  overcome,  and  that  he 
could  only  overcome  these   by  controlling   his  attention,  and 


104  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL  SCIENCE.  [§  36. 

pre-occupying  his  mind.  In  the  hero,  voluntary  self-control  pre- 
occupies the  man  with  thoughts  and  activities  which  preclude 
the  suggestions  of  terror.  The  coward  weakly  consents  to  the 
dominion  of  fear  by  dwelling  on  these  frightful  images,  and 
giving  way  to  the  thronging  fancies  of  evil. 

Character  is  also  voluntary  and  involuntary.     We  saw  that  in 

one  sense  will  is  not  essential  to  the  attainment  or 
Toiuntary  posscssion  of  character,  inasmuch  as,  without  it,  man 
and  inroinn-    might  posscss  predominant  sensibilities  and  springs 

of  action,  which  in  their  impression  and  aspect 
might  be  agreeable,  or  the  opposite,  and  in  their  operation  and 
effect  might  be  beneficent,  or  baneful ;  that  is,  man  might  have  a 
character,  even  without  moral  endowments  or  moral  liberty,  and 
simply  because  he  happens  to  possess  certain  individual  or  charac- 
teristic features  of  intellect  and  sensibility  (§  23) .  This  character 
may  also  be  formed,  for  better  or  for  worse,  under  the  moulding 
influences  of  his  circumstances.  It  cannot  be  denied  that  every 
Elements  of  ™^^  ^^^i  ^^  ^^^t,  a  characteristic  physical  organiza- 
character.  ^Jqu  ^hich  affects  his  physical  sensitivity,  and  that 
this  is  derived  from  his  parents,  and  through  them  is  the  product 
of  manifold  agencies  —  as  race,  climate,  health,  disease,  and  tem- 
perament —  for  many  generations.  His  intellectual  powers  and 
acquisitions,  his  powers  and  his  knowledge  also,  are  to  a  large 
extent  the  products  and  the  inheritance  of  transmitted  tenden- 
cies and  favorable  or  unfavorable  training.  Internal  psychi- 
cal forces,  both  emotional  and  intellectual,  under  the  law  of 
habit  and  association,  conspire  in  every  man  to  strengthen  or 
weaken  these  impulses  to  a  stronger  or  feebler  natural  energy. 

But  into  these  natural  and  necessary  constituents  of  charac- 
ter, and  in  all  the  growth  and  changes  through  which  they  are 
developed,  there  is  constantly  present  the  voluntary  element, 
which  is  always  active,  and  constantly  formative  and  controlling. 
This  sustains  and  energizes  those  underlying  and  constantly 
present  voluntary  states  which  constitute  the  moral  element  in 
character,  and  give  the  moral  complexion  and  moral  importance 


§87.]  CHABACTEB  AS  NATURAL  AND  VOLUNTARY.   105 

to  all  the  special  activities  of  thought  and  feeling  and  deed.  We 
call  them  states,  and  conceive  of  them  as  fixed.  They  are  more 
exactly  conceived  as  conditions  of  active  voluntary  energy, 
varying  in  tone  and  force  according  to  the  solicitations  from 
without  and  the  re-actions  from  within.  Every  properly  psychi- 
cal state  is  in  some  sense  spontaneous  and  self-active,  the 
manifestation  of  individual  force  ;  but  this  is  pre-eminently  true 
of  the  moral  activity  of  the  character,  which  is  constantly  main- 
tained by  the  voluntary  tension  and  force  of  the  man,  and  yet 
varies  in  degree  at  each  single  movement  of  his  individual 
activity.  This  may  be  compared  to  the  long  and  deeply  rolling 
ground-swell  of  the  ocean,  which  is  lifted  and  moved  forward 
from  beneath  with  varying  force,  yet  always  supreme,  although 
it  is  indented  with  myriads  of  ripples  on  its  surface,  or  tossed 
into  fringes  and  curls  of  foam  by  the  wind  which  plays  upon  it, 
or  by  the  shore  against  which  it  breaks. 

"  The  law  controls  not  only  the  acting,  but  the  being,  of  the  man,  so  far 

as  this  proceeds  from  the  man's  inner  act,  the  disposition,  the 

conception  of  which  includes  in  itself  a  fixed  direction  of    Julius  Muller, 

the  will,  which  has  become  habitual,  yes,  even  the  states  and    ^"  ^  ^f*^  ^' 
'  as  related  to 

movements  of  the  sensibility,  the  inclinations  and  disincli-   ^m^ 

nations  of  the  soul,  so  far  as  these  in  their  turn  are  also  deter- 
mined by  the  permanent  direction  of  the  will."  i— Dr.  Julius  Muller  : 
The  Christian  Doctrine  of  Sin,  book  i.  chap.  i.  p.  56,  5th  ed. 

§  37.  As  "  character  "  is  used  in  the  two  senses  of  natural  and 
moral,  so  is  '■^disposition."     "Disposition"   (Lat., 
dispositio;    Gr.,    Ata^eo-ts)    signifies   etymologically  as  natural 
the  relative  position  or  adjustment  of  the  springs  or  *°**  n»orai. 
impulses  of  action,  which  is  individual  in  the  man.     This  ad- 
justment may  be  natural  or  artificial,  physical  or  moral,  or  both 

1  "  Das  Gesetz  normirt  nicht  das  Thun  sondern  auch  das  Sein  des 
Menschen  wie  es  aus  der  innern  That  hervorgeht,  die  Gesinnung  deren 
Begriff  wesentlich  eine  feste,  habituelle  gewordene  Richtung  des  Willens 
in  sich  schliesst,  ja  selbst  die  Bewegungen  und  Zustande  des  Gemiiths,  die 
Neigungen  und  Abneigungen  der  Seele,  in  so  fern  dieselben  wiederum 
durch  die  beharrliche  Richtung  des  Willens  mit  bestimmt  werden." 


106  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL  SCIENCE.  [§  37. 

combined  ;  it  may  be  formed  and  fixed  by  nature  under  the  law 
of  creation,  heredity,  or  development ;  or  it  may  be  moulded, 
wholly  or  in  part,  by  the  soul's  voluntary  energy.  Morally  con- 
ceived, it  is  the  latter  and  this  only. 

It  is  important  distinctly  to  notice,  as  has  been  implied,  that 
the  activities  of  the  will,  whether  permanent  or  transient,  like 
all  the  other  activities  of  the  soul,  though  similar  in  quality, 
may  differ  from  one  another  individually  in  intensity  or  relative 
energy,  and  consequently  in  the  degree  of  their  moral  good  or 
evil.  As  this  energy  differs,  so  will  the  effects  differ  in  thought, 
feeling,  and  action. 

Twenty  men  may  prefer  the  same  object,  and  yet  the  choice 
of  each  may  be  individual  in  its  force  and  effectiveness.  This 
is  pre-eminently  true  of  that  permanent  activity  or  state  of  will 
which  we  call  the  character.  In  one  man  this  force  is  strong 
enough  to  overcome  every  opposing  agency :  in  another  it  only 
yields  to  rare  and  special  temptations,  without  being  abandoned. 
In  the  same  man  at  different  times  it  may  alternately  yield  and 
conquer.  In  this  way  do  we  explain  the  well-known  facts,  that 
the  character  may  be  upright  and  virtuous  in  its  controlling 
principle,  and  yet  be  unequal  to  single  and  special  temptations. 
It  also  explains  how  the  natural  misgrowths  of  a  morally  bad 
choice  or  character  may  remain  after  this  choice  has  been  aban- 
doned. It  also  accounts  for  the  inveterate  habits,  the  corrupt  and 
corrupting  associations,  the  degrading  and  imperious  appetites, 
the  violent  and  hasty  passions,  the  torpid  and  perverted  intellect, 
the  inveterate  and  indomitable  prejudices,  which  disturb  the  very 
springs  of  the  moral  life,  long  after  it  has  been  brought  under 
the  dominion  of  duty  by  the  energy  of  the  responsible  will. 


Some  moralists  (cf .  R.  Hazard,  Freedom  of  the  Mind  in  Willing)  who  hold 
Theory  nhich  ^  moral  freedom  deny  altogether  the  possibility  of  a  perma- 
reKolves  dis-  nent  state  of  the  will  as  an  effect  of  volition.  They  limit  the 
poHition  into  activity  of  the  will  to  its  momentary  and  transient  acts,  the 
habit  only.  effects  of  which  are  seen  in  subsequent  intellectual  facilities 
or  tendencies  towards  special  modes  of  thinking,  or  in  the  special  seusi- 


§37.]  CHABACTEB  AS  NATURAL  AND  VOLUNTABY.  107 

bility  of  certain  emotions  with  an  increase  of  energy  in  their  consequent 
proclivity  to  action.  Character,  according  to  this  theory,  is  shaped  by 
the  will  only  as  the  will  leaves  its  impress  upon  the  passive  or  spontane- 
ous springs  of  action.  Character  has  its  responsible  cause  and  its  origi- 
nating force  in  single  and  separate  acts  of  volition;  but  character,  as  a 
permanent  effect,  lies  wholly  within  the  domain  of  the  intellectual  and 
emotional  habits.  According  to  this  theory,  the  responsible  activities  of 
man  are  occasional,  not  constant.  He  is  responsible  for  what  he  chooses 
now  and  then,  and  for  the  effects  of  each  choice  on  his  habits  and  passive 
tendencies,  not  for  what  he  is  by  the  constant  consent,  —  the  more  or  less 
energetic  but  never-ceasing  activity  of  his  will. 

The  disposition,  according  to  this  theory,  is  the  natural  or  constitutional 
effect  of  voluntary  choosing :  according  to  the  other,  it  is  the  sustained 
energy  of  the  man's  allowed  or  energized  volition. 

This  theory  scarcely  provides  for  the  turning-points  and  decisive  crises  in 
the  moral  experiences  of  man,  and  their  permanent  influence 
upon  the  character  and  destiny.  The  decisive  act  in  such 
cases,  by  which  a  man  is  often  so  greatly  changed,  is  explained  as  only  the 
beginning  of  a  series  of  similar  volitions,  each  of  which  has  no  connection 
of  continuity  with  the  others  in  the  series,  except  that  which  comes  from  the 
slight  proclivity  of  habit,  so  far  as  it  gives  an  advantage  to  those  activi- 
ties of  thinking  and  emotion  which  follow  in  the  order  of  time.  In  the 
one  theory,  the  man  is  conceived  as  animated  by  a  voluntary  energy,  which 
is  never  remitted,  but  constantly  manifests  itself  in  special  volitions  which 
penetrate  and  vivify  his  single  psychical  acts  and  states:  by  the  other, 
his  moral  life  is  limited  to  a  series  of  acts  that  are  connected  only  in  the 
order  of  time,  and  indirectly  mould  the  habits. 

The  most  satisfactory  explanation  of  the  functions  of  the  soul  recognizes 
these  as  constantly  and  unceasingly  active,  and  as  acting  and  re-acting 
upon  one  another  in  every  instant  of  our  conscious  existence.  Scientifi- 
cally and  practically,  that  view  of  the  will,  with  its  exalted  freedom,  seems 
truest  to  reason  and  to  fact,  which  makes  character  to  be  the  constant 
energizing  of  the  responsible  will,  and  finds  in  such  a  will  the  nucleus  and 
spring  of  moral  personality. 


It  is  important  here  to  observe  and  repeat,  that  moral 
qualities,  in  the  strictest  sense,  are  ultimately  affirmed  of  the 
activities  of  the  will  and  of  these  alone.  The  will  being  the 
centre,  so  to  speak,  of  personal  character,  and  the  ground  of 
responsibility,  affects  all  the  other  inward  and  outward  activities 
of  the  man,  and  makes  them  all  susceptible  of  moral  relation- 
ships, and  subject  to  moral  judgments.     It  follows  by  natural 


108  ELEMENTS  OF  MOBAL   SCIENCE.  [§  37. 

consequence,  that  right  and  wrong  are  afl9rmed  of  acts  and 
states  of  emotion  and  thought  as  truly  as  of  acts  and  states  of 
the  will,  so  far  as  the  former  are  affected  by  the  latter.  We 
should  rather  say,  it  is  because  the  activities  of  the  will  are  mani- 
fested and  known  chiefly  through  their  modifying  influence  upon 
the  thoughts  and  feelings  and  actions,  and  hence,  by  means  of 
the  same,  that  the  variety  of  subject-matter  which  is  the  subject 
of  right  and  wrong  presents  a  theme  of  such  curious  speculative 
and  practical  interest. 

We  aflSrm,  with  pre-eminent  truth  and  emphasis,  that  the 

character  is  right  or  wrong,  inasmuch  as  it  is  its  su- 

sponsibiiitf     prcme  voluntary  activity,  its  controlling  principle  or 

forcharac*  motive,  which  distinguishes  the  man,  and  manifests 
ter. 

itself  in  every  one  of  his  special  activities,  whether 
of  volition  or  feeling,  of  thought  or  bodily  act.  We  apply  the 
same  epithets  to  each,  —  the  character,  the  special  volition,  the 
single  word  or  act,  —  whether  they  are  more  or  less  generic  or 
specific.  If  he  that  hateth  his  brother  is  a  murderer,  then  each 
special  volition  of  hatred  is  more  or  less  murderous,  according 
to  its  varying  energy.  Similarly  any  tendency  to  the  indul- 
gence of  specific  emotions  is  called  a  disposition,  as  having 
gained  the  increased  energy  which  is  imparted  to  the  involuntary 
impulses  by  means  of  repetition.  These  inward  dispositions  and 
habits  of  thought  and  feeling  are  constantly  and  rightly  recog- 
nized as  morally  right  or  wrong  so  far  as  they  are  consented  to  in 
the  permanent  states  or  repeated  acts  of  the  will.  The  heart 
itself,  as  comprehending  more  or  fewer  of  these  elements,  is 
regardcji  as  the  subject  of  moral  responsibility,  but  always  on 
the  ground  of  the  voluntary  activity  which  is  supposed  to 
be  directly  or  indirectly  concerned  in  its  general  and  special 
How  far  are  movements.  The  intellectual  judgments,  opinions, 
men  respipii.  and  habits,  also,  are  tried  by  ethical  standards,  and 
their  opin-  pronounced  to  be  morally  right  or  wrong  so  far  as 
ions!  these  are  supposed  to  be  influenced  directly  or  re- 

motely by  the  voluntary  purpose  of  the  man.     Last  of  all,  the 


§38.]  CHABACTJER  AS  NATUBAL  AND  VOLUNTABT.   109 

external  actions,  so  far  as  they  are  under  the  control  of  the  will, 
and  are  the  manifestations  and  products  of  good  or  evil  volitions, 
are  judged  to  be  morally  good  or  bad,  and  are  so  called.  In  the 
judgment  of  the  civil  law  nothing  is  judged  to  be  bad  which  is 
not  manifested  in  outward  activity  ;  and  yet  in  its  judgment,  no 
outward  act,  however  injurious,  is  bad  which  is  not  held  to  be 
the  result  of  an  inward  volition,  and  also  to  represent  the  man 
as  morally  bad  or  morally  good. 

We  scarcely  need  call  attention  to  the  profound  sagacity  and 
comprehensive  wisdom  of  the  familiar  words,  "A  good  man,  out 
of  the  good  treasure  of  the  heart,  bringeth  forth  good  things,  and 
an  evil  man,  out  of  the  evil  treasure,  bringeth  forth  evil  things." 
"  A  good  tree  cannot  bring  forth  evil  fruit,  neither  can  a  corrupt 
tree  bring  forth  good  fruit."  Nor  need  we  dwell  upon  the  influ-  ' 
ence  which  these  practical  principles  have  wrought  upon  the  ethics 
and  jurisprudence,  the  life  and  the  literature,  of  Christendom. 

§  38.  We  have  seen  that  character  includes  two  elements,  —  the  volun- 
tary and  involuntary.    This  circumstance  must  he  kept  in 
mind  in  the  conceptions  which  we  form  of  the  changes  which    C"*"^®^  and 
it  may  undergo.    First  of  all,  the  truth  must  not  be  forgotten,    character. 
that  the  permanent  moral  condition  which  gives  quality  to 
the  man,  and  enters  into  all  his  special  volitions,  is  rarely  and  with  ^ 
difiBculty  reversed.    And  yet  it  is  this  which  constitutes  and  characterizes   - 
the  man  as  morally  good  or  had,  and  which  gives  significance  to  his   ' 
changing  and  short-lived  activities.    This  truth  is  recognized  in  the"com- 
mon  speech  of  man,  and  in  the  proceedings  of  civil  justice  ;  in  hbth  of 
which  there  is  acknowledged  a  permanent  active  tendency,  which  in  some  », 
sort  is  regarded  as  distinguishable  from  the  transient  mani- 
festations of  temper,  and  words  and  deeds,  while  yet  it  .is    The  man  as 
the  living  spring  of  whatever  is  good  or  evil  in  either.    In    ^'^"•^"stea 

...  .,,  ,        ,  .  ,'     with  his 

this  sense,  it  is  often  said,  the  man  makes  the  motive,  and  not   Yolitlons. 

the  motive  the  man.  But,  though  a  constant  and  irrepressi- 
ble spring  of  good  or  evil,  it  need  not  follow  that  it  is  uniformly  energetic 
and  intense,  or  that  it  is  at  all  times  equally  criminal  or  virtuous.  Indeed,  "^ 
it  is  chiefly  or  entirely  known  by  means  of  single  acts  or  feelings,  and  th^se* 
are  marked  by  greater  or  less  energy  at  different  times;  and,  as  it  would 
seem  from  the  testimony  of  consciousness,  it  is  also  constantly  vivified 
and  energized  by  being  expressed  in  single  acts  of  thought  and  feeling, 
of  word  and  deed. 


110  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL   SCIENCE.  [§  38. 

On  the  other  hand,  however,  the  capacities  for  single  thoughts  and 
feelings  and  corporeal  actions  are  largely  dependent  on  agen- 
The  liiToliiii-  cies  that  obey  the  law  of  physical  causation,  conspicuously 
**m  'jlf  "^*  the  psycho-physiological,  and  none  the  less  really  those  which 
Toluntary.  pertain  to  the  representative  power  in  the  memory  and  pic- 
torial imagination.  Habit  never  fails  to  assert  its  sway  over 
all  these  activities;  and  it  begins  at  once  to  weave  its  network,  even  over 
many  of  the  experiences  which  are  ordinarily  conceived  as  simply  volun- 
tary. The  tyrannical  and  progressive  character  of  many  of  the  bodily 
appetites  deepens  our  impressions  of  the  elements  in  character  which  seem 
to  be  inconsistent  with  its  freedom  and  responsibility. 

The  mechanical  part  of  our  nature,  whether  psychical  or  physio-psychical, 
follows  its  own  laws,  however  these  laws  may  be  modified 
The  inTolnn-     j^y  ^he  will.    Habits  of  sense  and  memory,  of  intellectual  and 
th^i   o  "  emotional  association,  become  more  and  more  energetic  by 

laws.  repeated  and  passionate  indulgence,  or  weakened  by  frequent 

repression  and  rare  compliances,  and  by  the  occupation  of  the 
attention  and  feelings  with  objects  which  tempt  or  solicit  in  a  better  direc- 
tion, as  these  by  frequent  repetition  kindle  the  better  sensibilities,  or  con- 
firm the  more  elevated  associations.  These  movements  for  the  better  or 
the  worse  can,  however,  only  occur  under  the  energetic  application  of  the 
central  purpose,  and  may  therefore  indicate  a  change  in  direction  and 
intensity  for  the  better  or  the  worse.  Hence  we  recognize  the  truth,  that 
different  men  may  possess  substantially  the  same  moral  character,  and 
yet  with  an  energy  and  consistency  that  is  widely  variable.  Two  or 
twenty  men  may  be  thoroughly  selfish  or  avaricious,  while  yet  the  selfishness 
or  avariciousness  of  each  will  neither  compel  nor  allow  him  to  perform 
actions  at  which  the  other  will  not  hesitate.  Differences  of  this  sort,  in 
respect  to  the  kinds  of  actions  which  different  men  will  allow  themselves, 
and  the  zeal  with  which  they  will  perform  these  actions,  are  enormous, 
and  cannot  be  explained,  except  by  the  principle,  that  while,  in  all,  the 
ruling  passion  is  the  same,  the  consistency  and  energy  with  which  it  is 
obeyed  by  different  persons  are  variable  in  the  extreme. 

These  principles  also  enable  us  to  understand  the  relation  of  substantial 
permanence  of  character  to  changes  in  its  manifestations,  as  also  the  co- 
existence of  conspicuous  weaknesses  of  character  in  a  man  who  is  energeti- 
cally and  pertinaciously  upright  in  many  particulars.  They  also  explain 
the  possible  consistency  of  single  moral  weaknesses  with  substantial  up- 
rightness. 

It  sheds  some  light,  also,  upon  the  possible  necessity  of  moral  trial  to 

every  moral  being  who  is  to  attain  to  a  perfected  and  secure 

The  necessity    yjjtug^  inasmuch  as  complete  moral   security  against    the 

trial.  solicitations  of  evil  may  only  be  possible  in  its  very  nature 

by  an  ordeal   of    temptation  successfully  encountered  (cf. 

Butler,  Analogy,  etc.,  part  i.  chap.  v).     How  this  can  he,  can  be  easily 


§38.]  CHABACTER  AS  NATURAL  AND  VOLUNTARY.   Ill 

understood  by  any  one  who  reflects  on  the  capacities  of  the  sensibilities  so 
to  engross  the  attention  and  to  pre-occupy  the  energies  as  to  constitute  a 
second  nature  of  aspirations  and  desires.  It  is  certainly  clear,  that,  for 
man  as  he  finds  himself,  no  way  is  open  for  progress  toward  moral  health 
and  complete  confirmation  in  virtue  but  to  withstand  temptation,  and 
guard  against  the  solicitations  of  evil  in  the  detail  of  his  life. 

Our  analysis  does  not  require  us  to  give  any  theory  of  a  depraved  char- 
acter or  a  sinful  heart,  or  the  explanation  of  its  relations  to    «  ,  x.         * 
the  character  and  purposes  of  Him  whom  we  have  every  rea-    moral  weak- 
son  to  regard  as  morally  perfect.    We  have  to  do  with  the    ness  to  the 
constitution  of  man  as  we  find  it,  and  the  possession  by  man    purposes  of 
of  moral  freedom,  and  his  ill  desert  so  far  as  it  involves  his 
own  self-condemnation.    The  helplessness  and  disabilities  of  which  man 
is  conscious  would  seem  to  argue,  that,  in  his  normal  state,  he  may  possibly 
have  been  more  closely  allied  to  his  Creator  in  the  springs  of  his  moral 
and  spiritual  life  than  he  finds  himself  to  be  when  he  wakes  to  the  exer- 
cise of  moral  responsibility.    But  of  this  relationship  philosophy  gives 
neither  analysis  nor  explanation.    It  simply  finds  a  weakness  and  empti- 
ness which  man  would  fain  hope  may  at  some  time  be  supplied  by  strength 
and  completeness,  and  for  which  humanity  itself  would  almost  seem  to  sigh. 
In  its  longings  for  deliverance  from  the  heavy  burden  of  a  one-sided  weak- 
ness, as  truly  as  of  inexcusable  guilt.  ^It  is  enough  for  us  to  know  that  the 
most  efficient  remedy  for  man's  needs,  that  is  known  in  human  history, 
recognizes  the  weakness  as  truly  as  the  guilt  in  its  promises  of  deliverance. 


112  '   ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL  SCIENCE.  [§  39. 


CHAPTER  VII. 

THE  INTELLECT,  ITS  FUNCTIONS   IN   THE   MORAL  ACTIVI- 
TIES AND  EXPERIENCES. 

§  39.  That  the  intellect  is  more  or  less  active  in  the  moral 
experiences  is  universally  recognized.  Every  man 
the  InteHect  ^^^^  conccde,  bccausc  every  man  is  conscious,  that  he 
in  moral  phe-  ^lqqq  \^[q  intellect  in  a  great  variety  of  ethical  cogni- 
tions and  judgments.  What  is  the  nature,  and  what 
are  the  conditions,  and  what  the  results,  of  this  activity?  At 
what  stage  of  man's  development  does  this  activity  begin? 
What  are  the  conditions  of  its  exercise  ?  What  are  the  processes 
which  it  performs,  —  what  intuitions  or  categories  does  it 
discern  or  assume,  and  what  products  or  conceptions  does 
it  evolve  ?  These  are  questions  in  regard  to  which  much  dif- 
ference of  opinion  prevails,  and  sharp  controversies  are  still 
kept  alive.  These  questions  concerning  the  functions  of  the 
intellect  are  twofold,  — viz.,  psychological  and  metaphysical,  — 
the  one  involving  the  other  (cf.  chap.  viii.). 

It  would  seem,  at  first,  that  all  inquiries  which  concern  those 
operations  of  the  intellect  which  respect  ethical 
cesses  and  relations  should  be  purely  psychological,  —  should 
categores.  ^^  questions  of  fact  and  observation,  and  not  of 
philosophy.  But  as  in  similar  cases  so  in  this :  psychology 
leads  to  philosophy  ;  and  analysis  leads,  through  definitions  and 
reasoning,  to  principles.  Psychology,  as  such,  asks  how  the 
intellect  acts  in  ethical  processes ;   but  it  cannot  answer  this 


§  40.]         THE  INTELLECT,  ITS  FUNCTIONS,  ETC.  113 

question  Without  implying  that  the  intellect  also  evolves  certain 
products  known  as  ethical  cognitions  Or  conceptions.  Inas- 
much, also,  as  in  these  psychological  judgments  certain  catego- 
ries are  so  applied  as  to  be  especially  conspicuous  or  distinctly 
recognized,  these  also  will  be  likely  to  come  into  notice  in  the 
analysis  of  these  processes  or  their  results,  either  as  independ- 
ent and  original  for  ethical  science,  or  as  common  to  it  with 
every  form  of  knowledge.  What,  then,  are  these  processes  and 
products  and  categories,  and  how  are  they  defined  ?  The  attempt 
to  answer  this  inquiry  involves  the  analysis  and  history  of  all 
the  relations  and  concepts  that  are  employed  in  Ethics.  Thus, 
by  a  natural  and  inevitable  necessity,  psychology  prepares  the 
way  for  Moral  Science,  or  speculative  morality.  It  either  creates 
or  brings  to  light  a  metaphysic  of  Ethics  as  truly  as  it  does  the 
metaphysics  of  mathematics,  or  politics,  or  law. 

Following  these  suggestions,  we  propose  two  comprehensive 
inquiries  :  What  are  the  operations  or  functions  of  the  intellect 
in  man's  moral  experience?  and,  What  are  the  products  and 
categories  of  this  activity? 

§  40.  As  preliminary  to  the  discussion   of  these  two  ques- 
tions, however,  we  must  first  raise  the  general  in-  Evidence  for 
quiry,  What  is  the  evidence  that  the  relations  or  attri-  the  reality 
butes  known  as  right  and  wrong,  virtuous  or  vicious,   tance  of  mor- 
are  real  and  important  9    This  preliminary  inquiry  is  ^^  relations, 
essential  if  we  would  satisfy  the  student  that   his   researches 
have  to  do  with  facts  and  truths   of   solid  reality  and  prime 
importance.     Such  a  reconnoissance  of  the  field  of  inquiry  be- 
fore him  may  justify  and  inspire  his  careful  and  earnest  atten- 
tion to  subsequent  inquiries  respecting  their  nature.     In  answer 
to  this  general  inquiry,  we  observe,  — 

(1)  Moral  distinctions  are  universally  recognized.  No  man 
was  ever  known  to  exist,  who  in  any  sense  could  be   ,,,  „, 

'  *^  (1)  They  are 

called  a  developed  human  being,  who  did  not  recog-  nniversaiiy 
nize  certain  ethical  distinctions  as  real,  and  esteem  ^^^^^^  ^®  * 
them  as  of  supreme  importance.     We  take  men  as  we  know 


114  ELEMENTS  OF  MOBAL  SCIENCE.  [§  40. 

them,  whether  civilized  or  savage.  Each  observer  can  decide 
for  himself  whether  he  ever  encountered  an  individual,  or  a 
community  of  men,  by  whom  some  relations  of  duty  or  right 
were  not  accepted  and  enforced.  No  traveller  ever  reported 
facts  or  observations  which  would  justify  the  rash  and  not  infre- 
quent conclusion  that  a  tribe  or  community  of  men  had  no  rule 
or  manner  of  feeling  or  action  which  was  enforced  and  recog- 
nized as  morally  obligatory.  The  question  as  to  whether  this 
or  that  tribe  recognizes  any  rule  of  conduct  whatever,  is  often 
confounded  with  the  very  different  inquiry,  viz.,  whether  the 
rule  of  conduct  is  the  same  with  that  of  another  tribe,  or  that 
of  the  majority  of  civilized  and  enlightened  men. 

(2)  We  find  that  all  languages  are  provided  with  a  vocabulary 

of  terms  which  suppose  that  moral  distinctions  are 

(2)  Vocabu-  ^^ 

lary  found  accepted  as  real.  These  terms  could  never  have 
in  an  Ian-  been  originated  and  applied  so  generally  and  confi- 
dently, unless  the  men  who  use  them  had  believed 
the  conceptions  and  relations  to  be  real  which  these  terms 
designate  or  imply.  It  is  also  incredible  that  they  should 
have  believed  them  to  be  real  unless  there  were  some  solid 
foundation  for  this  belief. 

(3)  The  actions  and  sacrifices  of  men  bespeak  the  reality  and 
g         m  d    ^^P^^^^^^ce  of  these  conceptions.     It  is  true  that  the 

most  im-  actions  and  sufferings  of  men  for  their  faith  in  moral 
portant.  ^^.^^^  ^^  ^^^  Uniform.  It  must  be  confessed  that 
men  not  infrequently  act  against  their  moral  convictions ;  but 
even  then,  their  solicitude  in  proving  to  themselves  and  to  others 
that  they  are  in  the  right  when  charged  with  wrong,  or  to  pal- 
liate their  conduct  when  they  confess  themselves  guilty,  is  an 
emphatic  proof  that  their  beliefs  in  the  reality  of  right  and 
wrong  are  not  shaped  or  reversed  entirely  to  suit  their  con- 
duct. When,  on  the  other  hand,  men  believe  their  conduct  to 
be  morally  right,  there  is  often  nothing  which  they  will  not  do 
or  dare  for  their  faith.  Indeed,  we  may  assert  with  confidence, 
that  so  far  as  man  is  in  his  normal  condition,  —  that  is,  so  far  as 


§  41.]         THE  INTELLECT,   ITS  FUNCTIONS,   ETC.  115 

his  intellect  is  unbiassed  by  passion  or  other  perverting  influ- 
ences, —  he  judges  moral  truth  to  be  the  most  certain  and  sacred 
of  all  truth,  he  confesses  moral  earnestness  to  be  the  most 
rational  of  all  earnestness,  he  justifies  and  honors  moral  enthu- 
siasm and  heroism  with  the  readiest  and  most  ardent  sympathy. 
In  poetry,  eloquence,  and  every  form  of  imaginative  literature, 
moral  sentiments,  when  fitly  expressed,  have  a  grandeur  and 
beauty  which  attest  the  universal  convictions  of  men  that  moral 
truth  is  the  most  evident  and  most  important  of  all  conceivable 
truths.  The  human  heart  invariably  and  everywhere  responds 
to  the  truth  anfl  call  of  duty. 

§  41.  Next:  moral  relations  are  not  the  products  of  circum- 
stances more  or  less  common  to  the  human  race,  but  ^  .  ,    ^  . 

'  Originate  in 

they  are  discerned  by  the  independent  activity  of  the  the  individ- 
individual  man.  They  are  in  this  sense  independ-  "*  "**"* 
ent  and  permanent.  Their  reality  and  authority  are  not  derived 
from  circumstances,  but  are  aflSrmed  and  enforced  by  the  soul 
itself,  primarily  for  itself,  and  secondarily  for  others.  They 
are  not  originated  by  special  circumstances,  though  these  modify 
their  import  and  application.  They  are  not  imparted  by  edu- 
cation, although  they  are  discerned  by  the  capacities  which 
education  imparts.  They  are  not  first  enforced  by  any  authority 
external  to  the  soul  itself,  although  they  are  re-enforced  by  the 
authority  of  God  and  man. 

Those  who  hold  that  moral  relations  are  derived  from  exter- 
nal circumstances  and  influences,  trace  their  origin  gg^g^g^  ^t 
to  one  or  more  of  three  sources;  viz.,  the  will  of  many  to  one 
God,  the  authority  of  the   civil  ruler,  or  the  influ-  ^jj^.^^ 

ence  of  education  and  public  sentiment.     They  assert  so"'ces: 

^  ^  -^  (1)  the  will 

that  the   intellect  accepts   as   right   and  wrong  (1)    of  God, 

whatever  God  does,  or   is  supposed  to,  command  {f^*^^*^^*^ 
or  forbid,  simply  because  he  commands  or  forbids   (3)  public 
it ;  or  (2)  whatever  the  civil  ruler  commands  or  for- 
bids, simply  because  the  law  requires  or  prohibits  ;  or  (3)  what- 
ever men  in  the  family,  the  school,  or  by  public  opinion,  teach 


116  ELEMENTS  OF  MOBAL  SCIENCE,  [§  41. 

and  enforce  as  necessary  to  secure,  or  certain  to  forfeit,  their 
favor.  Those  who  deny  that  these  relations  are  derived  from 
man's  own  constitution,  and  enforced  upon  himself  by  his  indi- 
vidual authority,  assert  that  they  originate  in  one  or  all  of  these 
three  sources  ;  indeed,  that  these  are  the  only  possible  external 
originals  from  which  they  can  be  derived  :  that  is,  if  moral  dis- 
tinctions are  not  the  necessary  products  of  the  individual  soul, 
they  must  be  the  creatures  of  education,  society,  law,  or  religion. 


The  following  from  Locke's  Essay,  book  ii.  chap,  xxviii.,  represents  this 
theory  in  all  its  forms:  — 

"  §  5.  Moral  good  and  evil,  then,  is  only  the  conformity  or  disagreement 

of  our  voluntary  actions  to  some  law  whereby  good  and  evil 

Locke's  ex-       Qxe  chosen  as  from  the  will  and  power  of  the  Law-maker ; 

p  ana   on  o      -y^ijich  good  and  evil,  pleasure  or  pain,  attending  our  observ- 

and  CTil.  ^^^^  °^  breach  of  the  law,  by  the  decree  of  the  Law-maker  is 

what  we  call  reward  or  punishment." 

"  §  7.  The  laws  that  man  generally  refer  their  actions  to,  to  judge  of 
their  rectitude  or  obliquity,  seem  to  be  these  three:  (1)  the  divine  law; 
(2)  the  civil  law;  (3)  the  law  of  opinion  or  reputation,  if  I  may  so  call  it." 

"  §  8.  First  the  divine  law,  whereby  I  mean  that  law  which  God  has 
set  to  the  actions  of  men,  whether  promulgated  to  them  by  the  light  of 
nature  or  the  voice  of  revelation."  *'  This  is  the  only  true  touchstone  of 
moral  rectitude,"  etc. 

"  §  9.  The  civil  law  — the  rule  set  by  the  commonwealth  to  the  actions 
of  those  who  belong  to  it  — is  another  rule  to  which  men  refer  their 
actions,  to  judge  whether  they  be  criminal  or  no." 

"  §  10.  The  law  of  opinion  or  reputation,"  etc. 

"  §  11.  That  this  is  the  common  measure  of  virtue  and  vice  will  appear 
to  any  one  who  considers,  that  though  that  passes  for  vice  in  one  country 
which  is  counted  a  virtue,  or  at  least  not  vice,  in  another,  yet  everywhere 
virtue  and  praise,  vice  and  blame,  go  together  .  .  .  And  though  perhaps 
by  the  different  temper,  education,  fashion,  maxims,  or  interest  of  different 
sorts  of  men,  it  fell  out  that  what  was  thought  praiseworthy  in  one  place 
escaped  not  censure  in  another;  and  so  in  different  societies,  virtues  and 
vices  are  changed ;  yet  as  to  the  main,  they  for  the  most  part  kept  the  same 
everywhere." 

It  is  to  be  remembered,  in  justice  to  Locke,  that,  when  his  attention  was 
called  to  the  language  which  he  had  used  in  respect  to  the  divine  law  and 
the  law  of  opinion,  he  insisted  that  this  was  consistent  with  his  holding  to  a 
law  or  light  of  nature.  It  would  seem,  however,  from  the  ambiguity  of  his 
own  language,  that  he  did  not  carefully  distinguish  between  the  law  as  the 


§  42.]         THE  INTELLECT,   ITS  FUNCTIONS,  ETC.  117 

originator,  and  as  what  he  elsewhere  calls  "  the  sole  touchstone  or  the  sole 
measure  of  the  rectitude  of  our  actions."  —  Book  ii,  chap,  xxviii.  §  8. 

§  42.  Against  this  theory,  in  whatever  form  its  principle  may 
be  urged,  we  assert,  —  • 

I.  Moral  distinctions  are  not  constituted  by  the  enactments 
of  the  civil  ruler.  This  was  the  well-known  doc-  j.  Moral  dis- 
trine  of   Hobbes,  having  been  stated  by  him  with  tinctions  do 

not  originate 

singular  clearness,  and  applied  with  unsparing  rigor  in  the  civil 
to  its  extremest  logical  consequences.  "  Therefore,  ^*^* 
before  the  names  of  just  and  unjust  can  have  place,  there  must 
be  some  coercive  power  to  compel  men  equally  to  the  perform- 
ance of  their  covenants  by  the  terror  of  some  punishment  greater 
than  the  benefits  they  expect  by  the  breach  of  their  covenant, 
and  to  make  good  that  propriety  which  by  mutual  contract  men 
acquire,  in  recompense  of  the  universal  right  they  abandon ; 
and  such  power  there  is  none  before  the  erection  of  a  common- 
wealth."—  Leviathan,  part  i.  chap.  xv. 

In  support  of  this  doctrine  it  is  urged,  (1)  To  many  persons 
the  enactments,  usually  the  prohibitions,  of  the  civil  ^ 

•^  ^  Reasons  giv- 

law,  are  the  only  recognized  measures  or  standards  en:  (i)  To 
of  right  and  wrong.  Such  persons,  it  is  contended,  o^^y  rgeog**** 
know  actions  as  moral,  only  so  far  as  they  know  nizedstand- 
them  to  be  commanded  or  forbidden  by  positive 
law.  Let  this  be  conceded  in  some  instances  to  be  true,  it  does 
not  follow  that  these  persons  might  not  find  and  apply  another 
standard,  viz.,  that  which  is  furnished  from  the  soul  itself.  The 
failure  of  such  to  use  their  powers  so  as  to  discover  a  law  of 
duty  within  themselves,  by  no  means  proves  that  this  law  does 
not  exist,  and  cannot  be  found.  A  similar  incapacity  or  failure 
not  infrequently  occurs  with  respect  to  mathematical  quantities. 
Inattention,  through  intellectual  torpor  or  moral  perverseness, 
may  incapacitate  the  intellect  to  discern  mathematical  relations. 
It  by  no  means  follows,  however,  that  these  relations  were 
originated  by  the  makers  of  mathematical  text-books,  or  devised 
by  mathematical  pedants. 


118  ELEMENTS  OF  MOBAL  SCIENCE.  [§  43. 

It  is  urged  still  further,  (2)  that  in 'respect  to  many  classes 
of  actions  the  civil  law  is  creative  of  moral  quality, 
actions  a*r"  Inasmuch  as  actions  which  are  forbidden  by  one 
determined  government,  and  thereby  have  become  morally  rep- 
rehensible, under  another  are  commanded  or  per- 
mitted, and  thereby  are  made  morally  right.  These  facts  can- 
not be  denied  ;  but  the  truth  is  equally  obvious,  that,  in  the 
instances  supposed,  the  actions  supposed  are  morally  indifferent 
before  they  are  commanded  or  forbidden,  while  it  is  not  in- 
different that  some  course  of  action  should  be  prescribed  by 
positive  command,  or  that  a  ruler  should  be  respected  whenever 
he  issues  such  a  command.  Moreover,  the  positive  command, 
in  every  instance  supposed,  respects  the  external  conduct  alone. 
Those  who  hold  that  moral  relations  are  independent  of  positive 
authority  would  concede  that  morality,  so  far  as  civil  society  is 
concerned,  may  be  in  great  measure  conventional  and  positive. 
But  to  the  assertion  that  the  obligation  of  one  law  or  another  is 
created  by  the  enactment  of  the  law,  the  reply  is  pertinent, 
Whence,  then,  comes  the  general  obligation  to  recognize  civil 
enactments  as  binding  so  soon  as  they  are  enacted?  If  the 
ruler  can  appeal  to  no  authority  beyond  the  law  itself,  and  if  he 
can  enforce  no  obligation  higher  than  the  dread  of  the  fine  or 
imprisonment,  or  whatever  else  of  positive  evil  he  is  able  to 
inflict,  then  the  moral  obligation  to  obey  the  law  must  be 
resolved  into  the  fear  of  superior  strength.  If  right  is  created 
by  the  law,  then  right  is  created  by  might. 

§  43.  Against  this  doctrine  the  following  reasons  are  deci- 
sive :  (1)  Obedience  to  the  law  is  enforced  by  an 
against :  (1)  authority  beyond  and  higher  than  the  law  itself. 
Obedience  Whether  the  appeal  is  made  to  conscience,  to  alle- 
enforced  giancc  to  God,  to  the  public  welfare,  or  to  the 
byhigiier        iudffment  of   mankind,  whether  or  not  an  oath   is 

autliority.  •*      °  ' 

employed  for  the  enforcement  of  the  law,  it  cannot 
be  questioned  that  some  standard  of  judgment,  or  motive  of 
enforcement,  is  employed  other  than  those  furnished  by  the  law 


§  44.]         THE  INTELLECT,   ITS  FUNCTIONS,  ETC.  119 

itself  and  its  threatened  penalty.  Even  Hobbes  is  frank  and 
logical  enough  to  concede  that  the  "original  of  justice  is  in  the 
making  of  covenants,"  and  "the  nature  of  justice  consisteth 
in  keeping  valid  covenants,"  i.e.,  in  the  practical  necessity  for 
mutual  confidence.  Upon  this  practical  necessity  of  good  faith 
to  this  end,  rests  the  entire  fabric  of  that  commonwealth  which 
makes  it  possible  that  "  the  names  of  just  and  unjust  can  have 
place." 

(2)  Laws  themselves  are   judged  and  criticised  as  morally 
right  or  wrong :    at  least,  it  cannot  be   questioned   (2)  Laws 
that  they  are  constantly  approved  or  condemned  as  themseiTes 

are  judged 

morally  beneficent  or  harmful.     It  is  obvious  that  to  be  right 
the  moral  quality  of  laws  can  only  be  tested  and  ^^  wrong, 
judged  by  a  criterion  higher  than  the  laws  themselves.     Such  a 
criterion  or  standard  can  never  itself  be  a  creature  of  the  law. 

(3)  Laws   may  be   resisted   and    disobeyed   whenever  they 
contradict  the  law  of  duty ;  and  rulers  themselves, 

under  extreme  circumstances,  may  be  deposed  from  rightfully ^'^^ 
authority.    We  do  not  here  inquire  when  this  may  be   resisted  and 

.    ,     -   „  -,  ,  .  .  ,  disobeyed. 

done  rightfully,  nor  under  what  circumstances  either 
individual  disobedience  or  a  popular  revolution  may  be  allowed. 
We  only  recognize  the  truth,  that  disobedience  or  resistance  to 
the  civil  law  may,  under  certain  circumstances,  be  justified ; 
and  simply  urge,  that  if  laws  may  at  any  time  be  resisted,  and 
rulers  may  be  deposed,  then  duty  and  obligation  are  not  the 
creatures  of  either  the  law  or  the  ruler. 

§  44.  II.  Moral  distinctions  are  not  originated  or  enforced, 
solely  by  the  opinions  and  feelings  of  men  in  soci- 

•^      "^  *  °  II.  Moral  re- 

ety.     This  has  been  held  by  not  a  few  philosophers,   lations  do 
and  has  of  late,  by  the  aid  of  other  elements,  been   "«*  o"&i»iate 

'      -^  '  with  society. 

expanded   into  a   plausible   and   prevalent   theory.   Adam  Smith's 
Among  the  earliest  and  most  distinguished  of  its 
advocates  is  Adam  Smith,  who  contends,  in  "The  Theory  of 
Moral   Sentiments,"  that   the   standards    of   right  and  wrong 
are  derived  solely  from  the  supposed  judgments  and  feelings 


120  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL  SCIENCE.  [§  44. 

of  our  fellow-men  in  respect  to  our  own  feelings  and  actions, 
and  enforced  by  our  sympathy  with  these  supposed  feelings  and 
judgments,  and  consequently  that  human  society  is  the  neces- 
sary condition  of  all  moral  judgments  and  feelings.  He  goes 
so  far  as  to  assert,  that  "  were  it  possible  that  a  human  crea- 
ture could  grow  up  to  manhood  in  some  solitary  place,  without 
any  communication  with  his  own  species,  he  could  no  more 
think  of  his  own  character,  or  the  propriety  or  demerit  of  his 
own  character,  or  the  beauty  and  deformity  of  his  own  mind, 
than  of  the  beauty  and  deformity  of  his  own  face.  .  .  .  Bring 
him  into  society,  and  he  is  immediately  provided  with  the 
mirror  which  he  wanted  before  "  {Theory  of  Moral  Sentiments, 
part  iii.  chap.  i.). 

The  process  by  which  this  ''  mirror  '*  is  formed  by  each  indi- 
vidual is  thus  explained.  It  is  in  society  only  that  men  can 
learn  that  their  fellow-men  are  pleased  or  displeased  with  their 
feelings  and  actions.  Slowly,  but  surely,  they  connect  their 
favorable  or  unfavorable  judgments  and  feelings  with  the  con- 
duct and  purposes  which  occasion  them.  With  these  feelings 
and  judgments  of  others  they  naturally  and  necessarily  sympa- 
thize, whether  these  are  favorable  or  unfavorable  to  themselves. 
In  process  of  time  they  learn  to  substitute,  in  place  of  the  living 
men  and  women  about  them,  ''aw  abstract  man  within  their 
breasts^'*  which  is  the  representative  or  the  personification  of 
these  imagined  judgments  and  feelings  of  their  fellow-men  in 
general. 

The  associationalists  of  the  present  day  adopt  this  theory 
in  its  principle,  finding  additional  evidence  for  its  truth  in  the 
larger  room  and  wider  importance  which  they  give  to  "insep- 
arable associations"  in  the  formation  and  structure  of  all  the 
more  important  psychical  products.  To  those  who  explain  the 
rise  and  growth  of  these  products  by  the  process  of  evolution, 
their  genesis  from  social  influences  is  more  readily  accounted 
for ;  while,  to  those  who  explain  both  association  and  evolution 
by  brain  or  nerve  differentiations,  the  theory  of  the  social  origin 


§44.]         THE  INTELLECT,  ITS  FUNCTIONS,  ETC.  121 

of  ethical  phenomena  is  placed  on  a  still  broader  basis.  That 
a  strong  current  of  thinking  at  the  present  day  sets  in  the 
direction  of  deriving  all  moral  relations  from  social  forces,  sub- 
stantially after  the  theory  of  Adam  Smith,  is  too  well  known  to 
be  denied  or  questioned  (cf.  Alexander  Bain,  Mental  and 
Moral  Science;  Herbert  Spencer,  Data  of  Ethics;  Charles 
Darwin,  Descent  of  Man;  G.  H.  Lewes,  Problems  of  Life  and 
Mind;  Professor  W.  K.  Clifford,  Essays  and  Lectures;  John 
Fiske,  Cosmical  Philosophy ;  Leslie  Stephen,  Tlie  Science  of 
Ethics) .  The  theory,  in  its  fundamental  principle,  is  the  same, 
whether  "  environment,"  "  the  tribal  self,"  "  social  tissue,"  or 
Adam  Smith's  "abstract  man  within  the  breast,"  or  any  other 
phrase,  is  employed  to  designate  this  social  conscience  or  stand- 
ard of  duty.^ 

It  is  not  essential  that  the  theory  that  moral  relations  are 
social  in  their  origin  should  include  all  the  features  of  the  theo- 
ries of  Adam  Smith  or  the  associationalistic  evolutionists.  It 
may  be  held  in  a  simpler  form  by  substituting  the  so-called  law 
of  opinion  for  the  civil  law,  and  resolving  moral  sanctions  into 
the  hope  or  fear  of  the  favor  or  disfavor  of  our  fellow-men  in 
an  unorganized  community. 

But  in  whatever  form  this  theory  is  held,  it  has  the  same 
weakness  with  the  bold  assertion  of  Hobbes,  that  objections  to 
the  enactments  of  civil  rule  create  and  enforce  moral  the  social 
distinctions.  It  rests  upon  the  same  arguments  for 
its  support,  and  it  is  exposed  to  the  same  fatal  objections. 
That  the  opinions  and  feelings  of  our  fellow-men  in  society 
have  much  to  do  in  modifying  and  enforcing  the  moral  codes 
and  the  moral  feelings  of  man,  cannot  be  doubted,  so  far  as 
these  concern  their  outward  conduct ;  but  that  they  cannot  in 
any  sense  originate  or  enforce  them,  is  evident  from  the  consid- 
erations already  referred  to  in  discussing  the  kindred  theory. 


1  For  the  actual  influence  of  social  forces  in  modifying  moral  standards 
of  feeling  and  conduct,  cf.  cliap.  n,  §§  XI.  H- 


122  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL   SCIENCE.  [§  45. 

There  are  judgments  and  feelings  of  duty  to  which  no  number 
of  men,  and  no  force  of  their  liking  or  disliking,  can  possibly 
give  currency  or  force  as  righteous  and  meritorious :  there  are 
other  judgments  and  feelings  which  commend  themselves  to 
universal  assent  and  sympathy  as  soon  as  they  are  made  mani- 
fest. The  one  class  is,  and  the  other  class  is  not,  in  harmony 
with  that  nature  of  the  individual  man  which  tends  to  form  and 
reform  social  judgments  and  feelings,  however  strong  are  the 
interests,  or  false  the  judgments,  however  perverse  are  the  sym- 
pathies, and  unreasonable  the  likes  and  dislikes,  of  others.  In 
every  practical  struggle  between  the  individual  and  the  commu- 
nity, concerning  what  is  morally  true,  the  individual  appeals  to 
the  better  judgment  and  the  honest  emotions  of  his  fellow-men 
as  individuals.  Herein  lies  the  importance  and  dignity  of  the 
right  of  private  judgment,  and  the  authority  and  responsibility 
of  the  mdividual  conscience. 


§  45.  The  so-called  evolution  theory  of  Ethics  is  properly  classed  as  one 
Relation  of  ^^  ^^^®  theories  which  derive  moral  distinctions  conspicuously 
evolutionist  from  society  by  the  operation  of  association,  and  for  the  rea- 
to  tlie  social  son  that  its  advocates  confessedly  make  these  distinctions  to 
theory.  ^^  ^j^^  products  of  environment. 

Though  this  environment  in  its  earlier  stages  is  held  by  them  to  he 
material  and  nervous,  yet  when  it  reaches  its  highest  forms 
Herbert  ^^  q^^q  becomes  social ;  i.e.,  so  soon  as  material  phenomena 

Ad  "^^S  "kh  ^^^  developed  into  the  experiences  of  consciousness.  The 
Spencerian  theory  differs  from  the  theory  of  Adam  Smith 
in  the  following  particulars :  to  the  psychical  law  of  the  association  of 
thoughts  and  feelings  it  superadds,  as  did  Hartley,  the  physiological  rela- 
tions of  the  nervous  and  cerebral  apparatus,  ^vhile  it  differs  from  Hartley 
in  accounting  for  both  by  the  assumed  operation  of  the  broader  law  of  evo- 
lution from  simpler  to  more  complex  forms  of  being  and  activity.  By  this 
formula  is  explained,  in  the  first  place,  the  emergence  into  being  of  the 
subject-matter  of  moral  approval;  viz.,  the  benevolent  or  altruistic  affection. 
Its  development  is  thus  traced.  In  the  lower  forms  of  existence  every 
impulse  would  necessarily  terminate  in  the  individual  self.  This  must 
continue  to  be  the  case  so  long  as  any  being  is  simple  in  its  structure,  and 
so  long  as  it  is  surrounded  by  a  simple  environment  with  which  its  com- 
munications are  rapid  and  direct.  But  as  the  subject  becomes  more  and 
more  complex  in  structure,  and  indirect  in  its  communications  "with  its 


§45.]         THE  INTELLECT,   ITS  FUNCTIONS,   ETC.  123 

surroundings,  it  finds  that  its  most  important  blessings  come  to  it  more 
and  more  obviously  through  the  medium  or  intiuence  of  other  beings  than 
itself.  As  a  consequence,  it  gradually  associates  these  other  beings  with 
all  its  enjoyments,  as  sources  of  blessing  to  itself,  and  learns  in  some  sort 
to  regard  them  as  enlargements  of  its  own  personal  essence,  till  at  a  certain 
time,  under  the  laws  of  association,  re-enforced  as  these  are  by  cerebral 
action,  it  'learns  to  Identify  the  general  well-being  with  its  individual 
interest.  When  this  process  is  complete,  the  common  good  is  insej^arably 
connected  with  its  own  highest  good.  By  these  successive 
steps,  there  emerges  a  powerful  secondarj^  interest  in  the  well-  J^^.  ^ 
being  of  others,  which  at  last  becomes  such  a  controlling 
affection  as  often  to  take  the  place  of,  and  dominate  over,  the  primary  and 
individual  impulses,  and  finally  to  generate  that  pure  and  disinterested 
altruism,  which,  in  the  best  sense  of  the  word,  "seeketh  not  its  own." 
All  the  affections,  it  should  be  remembered,  whether  self-terminating  or 
altruistic,  are  the  products  of  the  unconscious  experiences,  in  the  combina- 
tions of  which,  not  merely  the  thoughts  and  feelings  are  united,  but  material 
particles  and  agents  also  co-act  and  combine.  Heredity  also  comes  in  to 
transmit  to  succeeding  generations  the  tendencies  or  powers  acquired  by 
the  new  cerebral  stuff  which  is  generated  from  past  human  experiences  in 
forms  more  positive  and  pure  than  could  possibly  be  attained  by  the  brains 
of  previous  generations.  Thus  altruism,  or  unselfish  love,  is  the  secondary 
growth  of  the  indirect  associations  of  complicated  social  life,  as  these  have 
been  strained  through  the  more  and  more  refined  nervous  apparatus  of 
many  successive  generations. 

The  objective  law  or  standard  of  duty  is  also  generated  by  similar  pro- 
cesses.   In  Spencer's  own  language,  "  Though  the  moral  intui- 
tions are  the  results  of  accumulated  experiences  of  utility,    Conception 

gradually  organized  and  inherited,  they  have  come  to  be    ""^   V^  ^ 

,  duty,  how 
quite  independent  of  conscious  experience."     So  far  and  so    generated. 

long  as  these  processes  go  on  within  the  observation  of  con- 
sciousness, they  obey  the  laws  of  association  and  sympathy  as  expounded 
by  Adam  Smith,  except  that  sympathy,  according  to  Spencer,  is  itself  a 
secondary  or  derivative  affection,  whereas,  with  Smith,  it  is  an  original 
endowment  of  man.  So  far  as  it  depends  on  the  law  of  evolution  work- 
ing in  and  upon  the  nervous  system  in  which  it  roots,  it  is  thus  explained 
by  Mr.  Spencer :  "  Just  in  the  same  way  that  I  believe  the  intuition  of 
space  possessed  by  any  living  individual  to  have  arisen  from  organized 
and  consolidated  experiences  of  all  antecedent  individuals,  who  bequeath 
to  him  their  slowly  developed  nervous  organizations  .  .  .  so  do  I  believe 
that  the  experiences  of  utility,  organized  and  consolidated  through  all  past 
generations  of  the  human  race,  have  been  producing  corresponding  nervous 
modifications,  which,  by  continued  transmission  and  accumulation,  have 
become  in  us  certain  faculties  of  moral  intuition."  —  Letter  to  Mr.  J.  S. 
Mill. 


124  ELEMENTS  OF  MOBAL   SCIENCE,  [§  45. 

It  is  worthy  of  notice  that  this  theory  also  provides  for  a  constant  ten- 
Do  ot  dency  towards  what  it  calls  an  absolute  morality  under  the 
explain  the  ^^^^  ^^  evolution,  which  shall  finally  attain  to  a  perfect  objec- 
conception  tive  standard  and  subjective  achievement  of  duty  at  the  end 
of  absolute  ©f  jts  progressive  march.  If  this  anticipation,  or,  properly 
mora  y.  conceived,  this  law  of  evolution  in  morals,  is  to  be  relied  on, 
it  would  seem  that  Mr.  Spencer  himself  has  somehow  attained  to  an  ade- 
quate conception,  in  general,  of  what  this  absolute  morality  is  finally  to 
become,  at  least  in  its  general  features;  and  that  he  is  also  certain,  that, 
toward  this  as  its  end,  the  universe  is  moving,  and  in  it  is  destined  to  rest. 
We  will  concede,  that  in  many  subordinate  particulars  or  details,  both  of 
feeling  and  act,  the  law  of  duty  and  the  fact  of  duty  are  as  yet  neither 
complete,  nor  perfect,  nor  absolute  ;  but  we  must  still  assume  that  the 
conception  of  what  absolute  morality  is,  or  ought  to  be,  must  have  been 
already  attained,  if  we  can  form  any  conception  of  either  morality  or 
evolution,  and  recognize  these  conceptions  as  the  ultimata,  beyond  which 
the  conceptions  of  human  duty  cannot  go. 

In  other  words,  the  evolutionist's  theory  of  morals  presupposes  or  pre- 
sumes that  the  conception  of  perfect  moral  excellence  as  an  ideal  is  the 
end  or  aim  to  which  all  social  arrangements  and  influences  tend  and  move, 
even  though  it  be  conceded  that  this  has  not  yet  been  made  real.  But  how 
did  it  come  into  being  as  a  thought,  if  it  were  not  previously  existing  as  a 
fact,  or  if  the  elements  of  which  it  consists  were  not  already  known  and 
assented  to  ?  Especially,  how  came  it  to  be  anticipated  as  a  fact,  and  by 
an  axiomatic  necessity,  in  the  mind  of  Mr.  Spencer,  under  the  law  of  evo- 
lution itself  ?  In  other  words,  if  certain  ideas  concerning  the  standard  of 
duty  and  the  absolutely  perfect  virtuous  affections,  and  concerning  the 
law  of  duty,  are  known  by  anticipation  as  the  elements  of  that  absolute 
morality  which  is  the  outcome  of  completed  evolution,  how  could  they  have 
been  perfected  in  the  mind  of  Mr.  Spencer,  and  how  came  he  to  be  so  con- 
fident in  his  belief  and  knowledge  respecting  their  truth  ?  It  would  seem 
as  though,  in  attaining  this  assurance,  he  must  have  reached  and  gone 
beyond  all  the  social  and  cerebral  conditions  of  these  very  conceptions 
which  could  be  allotted  to  the  present  generation.  According  to  his  own 
showing,  the  time  has  not  yet  come  for  even  Mr.  Spencer  to  know  what 
absolute  morality  is.  The  very  conception  of  its  nature  is  hidden  in  the 
unrevealed  future,  much  more  the  faith  in  it  as  a  fact.  According  to 
the  law  of  evolution,  the  absolute  morality  in  both  ideal  and  law  is  yet 
to  be  evolved.  What  it  will  be,  and  what  it  is  to  be,  are  problematic  ideas 
and  truths,  concerning  which  no  man  can  affirm  with  positiveness  who 
derives  his  ethical  conceptions  from  the  processes  of  evolution,  whether 
these  jirocesses  are  wrought  in  nerve,  or  mind,  or  in  both.  It  follows,  that 
any  fixed  conceptions  of  moral  excellence  or  moral  rules  cannot  be  depend- 
ent on  the  shifting  sympathies  or  associations  of  our  fellow-men,  even 


§  46.]         THE  INTELLECT,   ITS  FUNCTIONS,   ETC,  125 

though  these  are  re-enforced  hy  the  activity  of  brain  and  nerve,  ?md  even 
though  their  progress  he  assumed  to  be  definite  and  steady  towards  a  goal 
of  absolute  moral  perfection  ;  or,  on  the  other  hand,  if  there  be  such  a 
goal,  the  conception  of  its  nature  and  the  belief  in  its  truths  cannot  be  the 
growth  of  the  tendencies  which  it  governs  and  controls,  and  out  of  which 
it  is  evolved.  Neither  the  idea,  nor  the  belief  in  it,  can  precede:  both 
must  come  after  the  fact. 

§  46.  III.  Moral  distinctions  are  not  originated  by  the  arbi- 
trary j^a^  or  will  of  the  Creator.     This  theory  has 

been  held  by  not  a  few  philosophers  and  theologians,  distinctions 

either  moved  by  the  desire  of  exalting  the  preroga-  JateTif  *"the 

tives  of  the  Supreme,  or  constrained  by  the  seeming  flat  of  the 
logical  necessity  of   resolving  every  finite  act  and 
product  into  the  power  of  the  Creator. 

William  Occam,  the  distinguished  nominalist,  asserted,  "  NuUus  est 
actus  mains,  nisi  quatenus  a  Deo  prohibitus  est  et  qui  non 
potest  fieri  bonus  si  a  Deo  prascipiatur  et  e  converse.    Ea  est    ^ 
boni  et  mali  natura,  ut  cum  a  Uberrima  Dei  voluntate  sancita 
sit  ac  definita  ab  eadem  facile  possit  eraoveri  et  refigi,  adeo  ut  mutata  ea 
voluntate,  quod  sanctum  et  justum  est,  possit  evadere  injustum."  —  Lib. 
ii.  qu.  19. 

Jeremy  Taylor  also:  "  God  cannot  do  an  unjust  thing,  because  whatever 
he  willeth  or  doeth  is  therefore  just,  because  he  willeth  and 
doeth  it,  his  will  being  the  measure  of  justice."  i*^^™^ 

Dr.  William  Paley  argues:  "Since  moral  obligation  de- 
pends, as  we  have  seen,  upon  the  will  of  God,  right,  which  is  correlative  to 
it,  must  depend  on  the  same.    Right,  therefore,  signifies  con- 
sistency with  the  will  of  God"  (Moral  and  Political  Philoso-   ™»am 
phy,  book  ii.  chap.  ix.).    Even  Bishop  Richard  Cumberland, 
who  contends  most  earnestly  against  Hobbes  that  morality  is  founded  in 
the  nature  of  things,  and  not  in  human  legislation,  was  con- 
strained by  the  imagined  necessities  of  his  logic  to  resolve    ^*^'**'''" 

Cumberland. 
"  the  nature  of  things  "  into  the  fiat  of  the  Creator.    He  even 

went  farther,  —  so  far  as  to  ascribe  arithmetical  and  geometrical  relations  to 
an  act  of  will  in  the  first  cause,  similar  to  that  by  which  rational  beings 
come  into  existence.  "  I  have  proved  the  law  of  nature  sufficiently  im- 
mutable, when  I  have  shown  that  it  cannot  be  changed  without  contradic- 
tion, whilst  the  nature  of  things  and  their  actual  powers,  which  depend  on 
the  divine  will,  remain  unchanged"  (Inquiry,  etc.,  chap.  i.).  Similarly 
Nathanael  Culverwell  (Light  of  Nature,  chap,  v.)  says  of  moral  law,  "It  is 
an  eternal  ordinance  made  in  the  depths  of  God's  infinite  wisdom  and 


126  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL  SCIENCE.  [§46. 

counsel  for  the  regulation  and  governing  of  the  whole  world,  which  yet  had 

not  its  virtue  in  respect  of  God  himself,  who  has  always  the 
€nlverwell.       ^"^^  ^^^  unrestrained  liberty  of  his  own  essence,  which  is 

so  infinite  as  that  it  cannot  hind  itself,  and  which  needs  no 
law,  all  goodness  and  perfection  being  so  iiitrinsical  and  essential  to 
it,"  etc. 

On  the  other  hand,  Richard  Hooker  affirms,  "  They  err  who  think,  that, 

of  the  will  of  God  to  do  this  or  that,  there  is  no  reason  besides 
Hooker.  ^^^  °^^^  will."    "  The  being  of  God  is  a  kind  of  law  to  his 

working;  for  that  perfection  which  God  is,  giveth  perfection 
to  that  he  doeth.  God  is  a  law,  both  to  himself  and  to  other  things  be- 
sides "  (Eccles.  Pol.,  book  i.  §  2).    Stephen  Charnock  §ays,  "  The  moral  law 

is  not  properly  a  mere  act  of  God's  will,  considered  in  itself, 
Charnock  ^^  ^  tyrannical  edict,  like  those  of  whom  it  may  be  said, '  Stat 

pro  ratione  voluntas;'  but  it  commands  those  things  which 
are  good  in  their  own  nature,  and  prohibits  those  things  which  are  in  their 
nature  evil "  {Discourse  on  the  Being  and  Attributes  of  God,  ii.). 

That  moral  distinctions  cannot,  in  any  proper  sense,  be  cre- 
Reasons  ^^^^  ^^  ^^^  ^^^^^  ^^  God,  is  evident  from  the  nature 

against  this  of  these  relations.  They  can  belong  only  to  volun- 
tary action.  They  suppose  that  this  action  is  con- 
formed to  a  standard  proposed  for  its  direction.  This  standard 
is  a  reasonable  standard  ;  and,  if  so,  it  supposes  some  permanent 
relations  fixed  in  the  nature  of  the  moral  being,  whether  created 
or  uncreated,  which  no  fiat  of  mere  will  can  be  conceived  as 
capable  of  changing  as  long  as  the  being  exists.  This  is  evident 
still  further  from  the  consequences  of  the  doctrine  in  question. 
Were  it  accepted,  we  could  with  no  significance  assert  that  God 
himself  is  good,  or  perfect,  or  holy  ;  for,  according  to  the  theory, 
whatsoever  God  should  do  would  of  necessity  be  morally  right. 
"We  could  find  no  arguments  in  the  design  or  effect  of  his 
works  to  prove  that  he  is  beneficent  or  just ;  for,  by  the  very 
definition  and  analysis  of  our  terms,  every  thing  which  he  does, 
however  malevolent  or  unjust  it  might  seem  to  be,  could  not 
but  be  right.  It  would  also  be  impossible  to  test  any  alleged 
communication  or  revelation  from  God  as  worthy  or  unworthy 
of  him,  because  whatever  he  should  declare  or  reveal  must  be 
worthy  of  himself. 


§46.]         THE  INTELLECT,   ITS  FUNCTIONS,   ETC.  127 

It  scarcely  needs  to  be  said,  that,  as  soon  as  God  is  believed 
to   be  morally  perfect,  whatever  he  commands,  or  ^ 

•^    ^  '  Commands  of 

whatever  he  does,  must  for  that  reason  be  accepted  God  prove, 
as  morally  right :  in  other  words,  the  will  of  God  J^a^e"  "ction 
proves,  but  does  not  make,  an  act  to  be  right.  The  to  be  right 
command  of  the  perfect  Creator  is  indeed  accepted  '  ^'  "^* 
as  the  criterion  and  measure  of  moral  rectitude  ;  but  the  mere 
command,  as  such,  of  a  being  who  is  all-powerful  and  all-know- 
ing, can  in  no  sense  be  the  ground  of  moral  obligation.  Might 
of  any  kind  does  not  and  can  not  make  right.  But  it  may  be 
urged,  Is  not  God  the  originator  of  all  things  ?  Does  not  every 
thing  which  exists,  including  the  relations  of  all  things,  proceed 
from  his  fiat?  May  it  or  must  it  not  be  true  that  among  these 
relations  the  moral  are  included?  We  need  not  deny  that  all 
finite  things,  and  their  relations,  derive  their  possible  and  their 
actual  being  from  the  self-existent  Creator.  Moral  relations, 
however,  are  relations  of  action,  i.e.,  of  volition;  and  action 
supposes  a  fixed  rule  or  norm  to  which  they  are  or  are  not  con- 
formed. Such  a  rule  must  be  found  in  reason,  not  in  power,  — 
in  consistency  or  harmony  of  action  with  a  real  or  supposed 
nature,  or  conclusion,  or  fact.  If  moral  perfection  is  affirmed 
of  God,  it  supposes  relations  that  belong  to  his  nature  as 
having  a  permanent  essence  or  character.  It  is  true,  indeed, 
that  God  is,  and  is  what  he  is,  as  divine,  by  his  own 
self-existent  act.  But  to  suppose  this  essence  to  be  change- 
able by  an  act  of  will  or  power  is  to  confound  the  myste- 
rious energy  by  which  God  is  self -existent  as  to  his  essential 
nature,  with  the  creative  act  that  calls  an  individual  creature 
into  life.  It  is  to  suppose  activities  that  in  their  conceptions 
are  totally  dissimilar,  and  incapable  of  being  compared.  If 
the  being  and  nature  of  God  are  supposed  to  be  fixed,  any 
voluntary  conformity  to  this  nature  by  man,  or  by  God  himself, 
must  have  a  quality  which  cannot  be  changed  by  any  fiat  or 
arbitrary  decree. 

Moral  relations,  in  this  particular,  may  fitly  be  compared  with 


128  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL  SCIENCE.  [§  47. 

the  mathematical.     Of  the  mathematical  we  confidently  say  that 

they  are  fixed  in  the  nature  of   things :   they  can 

gous  to  math-  neither  be  made  nor  unmade,  they  can  neither  be  con- 

ematicai  firmed  nor  alinulled,  by  the  fiat  of  God.     Whether 

relations. 

space  and  time,  which  may  be  admitted  in  some  sense 
to  be  their  conditions,  are  possible  products  of  creative  power, 
is  a  legitimate  question  for  metaphysical  inquiry.  It  is  safe  to 
assert,  however,  that,  while  space  and  time  exist,  mathematical 
relations  must  be  permanent  and  self-evidencing,  and  that  over 
these  the  will  of  God  has  no  control,  but  must  respect  them  as 
permanent  and  controlling.  Similarly  we  may  aflEirm  of  moral 
relations,  that,  while  man's  nature  and  God's  attributes  remain, 
the  will  of  God  can  neither  originate  nor  destroy  them.  In 
this  sense  moral  distinctions  are  immutable. 

If,  then,  they  do  not  originate  in  the  caprice  or  power  of 
man  or  God,  they  must  be  derived  from  and  be  enforced  by  the 
nature  of  man.  It  follows  that  they  must  be  uniform  and  fixed, 
the  nature  of  man  being  supposed  to  be  uniform  in  its  essential 
features. 

Objections  §  47.  To  this  conclusion  the  following  objections 

apainst  the     ^^^  urged.     In  principle,  they  have  been  anticipated 

independence  °  ir  l      7         j  t- 

of  moral         and  provided  for.     They  ought,  however,  to  be  for- 
mally and  explicitly  considered.     It  is  objected,  — 
(1)  That  moral  distinctions  cannot  be  permanent  and  uni- 
form  is  proved  by  the  variety  of  the  speculative  or 
specuiatiye      philosophical  theories  which   have  been  formed  in 
theories.         rcspect  to  them.     It  is  contended,  that,  if  these  rela- 
tions were  necessarily  and  invariably  recognized  by  the  human 
race,  it  is  impossible  to  believe  that  they  could  be  so  variously 
defined  and  accounted  for.     Relations  so  obvious  as  these  are 
represented  to  be,  and  so  readily  assented  to,  ought  to  be  so 
clear  as  to  admit  satisfactory  definitions  and  uniform  explana- 
tions ;    and  yet  it  is  notorious  that  no  conceptions  have  been 
the  subjects  of  a  greater  number  of   conflicting  theories  than 
ethical  conceptions.     No  theories  have  given  rise  to  warmer  or 


§  47.]  THE  INTELLECT,   ITS  FUNCTIONS,   ETC,  129 

more  pertinacious  discussions,  or  more  acrid  controversies,  than 
ethical  theories. 

In  explanation  and  reply,  we  notice  an  obvious  difference 
between  the  discernment  of   a  relation  in  the  con- 
crete, or  as  exemplified  in  an  individual  example,   i,etween  the 
and  the  same  in  the  abstract;  i.e.,  as  denoted  by  discernment 
generalized  terms,  or  as  defined  by  an  exhaustive  and.inab- 
an^lysis.     It  may  be  very  easy  to  discern  a  concep-   ^*^*^*  *"®^*" 
tion  or  a  truth  when  applied  or  illustrated,  and  very 
diflficult  to  give  a  scientific   definition   or  theory  of   it.     This 
holds   good   of    every   species    of    formulated   definitions   and 
scientific  theories,  even  when  the  subject-matter  is  universally 
assented  to,  and  placed  beyond  the  reach  of  our  questioning. 
The  existence  of  the  material  world  is  accepted  as  a,  fact :  its 
phenomena  are  appealed  to  as  the  most  obvious  examples  of 
trustworthy  events.     But  the  definitions  of  matter  are  notori- 
ously diverse  and  undecisive ;  and  the  theories  of  matter,  and 
of   man's  belief   in  its  reality,  change  with  every  generation. 
Heat  and  light  are  the  most  positive  and  energetic  of  physical 
agents ;   and  yet  no  conceptions  ar,e  so  difficult  to  define  as 
these,  while  the  controversies  concerning  their  real  nature  and 
their  ultimate  laws  and  relationships  are  more  active   at   the 
present  moment  than  ever. 

Mathematical  concepts  and  relations  are  accepted  as  exam- 
ples of  the  most  obvious  of  self -evidencing  entities,  but  the 
metaphysics  of  mathematics  are  proverbially  attenuated  and 
doubtful.  Not  unfrequently  they  are  the  occasion  of  open 
disagreement  and  sharp  controversy.  The  same  is  true  of  some 
of  the  most  familiar  conceptions  in  social  relations  and  inter- 
course, as  those  which  pertain  to  property  and  exchange,  to 
rights  and  legislation.  The  fundamental  conceptions  of  politi- 
cal and  social  science  are  as  much  in  discussion  and  controversy 
as  are  the  conceptions  and  truths  of  Ethics.  This,  indeed, 
ought  to  be  no  matter  of  wonder,  inasmuch  as  the  most  of  them 
are  founded  in  Ethics.     It  would  almost  seem  to  be  true,  that 


130  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL   SCIENCE.  [§  47. 

the  more  familiar  a  conception,  and  the  more  obvious  a  truth, 
so  much  the  more  difficult  is  it  to  be  defined  and  demonstrated ; 
perhaps  because  the  definitions  of  such  conceptions  necessarily 
imply  the  widest  and  thinnest  of  generalizations.  Whatever 
may  be  the  explanation,  the  fact  is  unquestioned. 

On   the   other  hand,   the   fact   that  men   are   never  weary 
of  seeking  definitions  for  ethical  conceptions,  and 

Argnment  °  ^ 

from  the  of  finding  rcasons  for  ethical  beliefs,  is  decisive  of 
manifested  *^^  point  that  both  conccpts  and  theories  concern 
in  ethical  realities  which  cannot  be  questioned.  Men  do  not 
contend  for  ages  over  mere  shadows  :  there  is  always 
some  fire  beneath  the  smoke  of  a  never-ending  controversy.  We 
confidently  infer  that  men  would  not  seek  so  persistently  to 
define  or  explain  moral  relations,  were  not  these  relations  held 
by  them  to  be  important  and  real.  The  argument  that  men 
persist  in  forming  new  theories  and  new  definitions  in  Ethics, 
proves  the  contrary  of  that  which  it  is  intended  to  establish ; 
confirming,  rather  than  weakening,  the  reality  and  importance 
of  human  duties  and  human  rights. 

(2)  It  is  objected  still  further,  that  the  controversies  of  men 
(2)  Men  iind  ^^^  ^^  frequently  practical  as  they  are  speculative, 
practical         ^fe  miojht  couccde,  it  is  urffed,  that,  as  themes  for 

difficulties  °  »      »  ' 

as  truly  as  mere  speculation,  moral  relations  might  be  doubtful 
speculative,  g^jj^  vaguc ;  but  surely  they  ought  to  be  clear  and 
unquestioned  when  required  for  practice,  if  these  relations  are 
either  solid  or  sacred.  But,  in  fact,  men  are  as  uncertain  and 
as  ill-agreed  in  respect  to  what  they  ought  to  do,  as  in  respect 
to  what  they  ought  to  think.  Rules  concerning  ethical  conduct 
are  as  diverse  as  are  theories  of  ethical  beliefs. 

To  this  we  reply,  that  these  alleged  disagreements  as  to  what 
is  right  and  wrong  in  action  are  both  over-  and  under-stated. 
In  respect  to  certain  classes  of  duties,  men  are  agreed  in  their 
convictions  ;  while,  in  respect  to  others,  it  is  not  in  the  least 
surprising  that  they  should  be  unsettled  in  opinion,  or  differ  in 
their  practical  views. 


§47.]         THE  INTELLECT,   ITS  FUNCTIONS,   ETC.  131 

In  respect  to  the  inteutions  or  aims  which  should  control  those 
of  their  actions  which  affect  themselves  or  their  fel- 

Beply.    Men 

low-men,  all  men  have  the  same  fundamental  con-   are  agreed  in 
victions,  whether  or  not  they  understand  or  assent  ^^^at  their 
to  them  when  stated  in  abstract  terminology  or  gen-  purposes 
eral  propositions.    So  far  as  his  fellow-men  are  con- 
cerned, every  man  knows  that  love  is  better  than  hate ;  that 
benevolence  of  purpose  is  right,  and  selfishness  of  aim  is  wrong. 
So  far,  also,  as  their  intentions  and  impulses  affect  themselves, 
all  men  know  that  the  inferior  desires  should  be  subjected  to  the 
higher,  and  that,  when  the  two  conflict,  the  higher  should  prevail. 
Even  in  respect  to  many  classes  of  external  actions,  every 

man  knows  that  in  the  ordinary  conditions  of  social    . ,    , 

•^  Also  in  re- 

existence  he  should  respect  the  life,  the  liberty,  and  spect  to  many 

the  property  of  his  fellow-men,  and  that  excess  and  **^  ^®^^* 
carelessness  in  respect  to  the  appetites  and  impulses  which 
affect  himself  (as  gluttony,  drunkenness,  lust,  idleness,  and 
improvidence)  are  morally  wrong.  When  we  assert  this,  we 
are  very  far  from  saying  that  every  man  would  give  his  formal 
assent  to  these  truths,  but  that  he  could  not  withhold  this 
assent  if  he  would  attend  to  their  import.  A  man  may  fail  to 
attend  to  these  truths  when  expressed  in  words,  or  suggested 
in  thought,  and  this  through  indolence  or  torpor  of  mind,  or 
through  unwillingness  to  think  of  what  might  occasion  self- 
discontent  or  self-reproach ;  and  yet,  to  every  one  who  appre- 
ciates and  attends  to  their  import,  such  rules  are  self-evident. 
It  is  with  these  ethical  axioms  as  it  is  with  the  axioms  of 
mathematics:  a  man  may  fail  to  comprehend  the  conceptions 
involved ;  or,  if  in  some  sense  he  understands  their  meaning, 
he  may  fail  to  attend  to  them  so  carefully  as  to  discern  the 
relations  of  the  concepts  to  one  another,  so  as  to  know 
whether  they  are  true  or  false ;  and  yet,  should  he  attend  to 
them  and  appreciate  them,  he  cannot  withhold  his  assent.  In 
respect  to  both  classes  of  axioms,  we  say,  for  the  same  reason, 
the  judgments  of  all  men  are  alike. 


132  ELEMENTS  OF  MOBAL  SCIENCE.  [§  47. 

There  are  other  ethical  principles  and  rules  in  which  men  are 
very  far  from  being  agreed,  and  for  two  reasons : 
disagreement  W  The  suDJect-matter  is  such  that  no  uniform  and 
Ithere^ **"*  ^  ^^^^  ^^^^^  ^^^  possible,  (b)  What  is  right  in  one 
set  of  circumstances  is  wrong  in  another.  Rules  of 
this  kind,  it  should  be  remembered,  concern  the  external  actions 
only,  and  never  the  controlling  aim  or  purpose.  It  may  be  uni- 
formly and  invariably  right  that  I  should  intend  thus  and  thus,  — 
as  to  produce  this  or  that  effect  with  respect  to  my  fellow-men 
or  myself,  e.g.,  the  highest  welfare  of  either;  but  it  by  no 
means  follows  that  I  ought  to  do  or  say  the  same  things  to  the 
same  man  at  all  times,  or  to-different  men  at  the  same  time, 
and  for  the  reason,  that,  as  circumstances  vary,  the  duty  in  ex- 
ternal action  will  vary.  If  the  subject-matter  or  the  external 
action  is  not  the  same,  the  judgments  of  men  in  respect  to  acts 
of  duty  ought  not  to  be  the  same,  for  the  reason  that  the  same 
material  (i.e.,  the  external  act)  which  is  right  at  one  time  may 
be  wrong  at  another.  It  is  also  true,  that,  if  the  subject-matter 
is  the  same  (i.e.,  if  the  external  act  is  uniformly  right,  as  in  a 
few  supposed  cases),  the  obligation  to  perform  the  action  can 
be  discerned  only  by  the  man  who  is  fully  acquainted  with  the 
facts  and  relations  which  enforce  the  obligation.  Different 
men  may  be  differently  informed  or  advised  as  to  the  facts ; 
and,  according  to  the  fulness  or  scantiness  of  their  knowledge, 
they  will  judge  more  or  less  correctly.  It  follows,  that  the 
diversity  of  the  practical  judgments  of  men,  concerning  actions 
as  contrasted  with  purposes,  is  no  valid  or  decisive  objection 
against  the  self-sufficing  evidence  or  independent  authority  of 
moral  relations.  Such  evidence  and  authority  is  not  only  con- 
sistent with,  but  it  alone  can  adequately  explain,  the  diversity 
of  practical  judgments  and  moral  codes  which  are  accepted 
among  men ;  and  this,  whether  this  diversity  is  more  or  less 
affected  by  physical  or  psychical  causes  ;  whether  it  is  ascribed 
to  climate,  food,  or  other  material  conditions,  or  to  education, 
civilization,  government,  or  religion. 


§48.]  OBIGIN  AND  NATUBE  OF  MOBAL  BELATIONS.  133 


CHAPTER    VIII. 

ORIGIN  AND  NATURE  OF  MORAL  RELATIONS. 

§  48.  In  the  last  chapter  we  reached  the  conclusion  that  the 
intellect  does  not  derive  moral  relations  from  without  ^     ,    . 

Conclnsion  of 

the  individual  man,  either  in  the  form  of  informa-  preceding 
tion,  or  authority,  or  influence,  but  that  it  develops  *  *^  ^^' 
aTid  learns  them  from  within.  We  saw  that  the  ideas  of  right 
and  wrong  cannot  be  the  products  of  religion,  society,  or  law, 
but  are,  so  to  speak,  the  creations  of  the  individual  man.  While 
it  is  true  that  these  external  circumstances  and  influences  have 
much  to  do  in  shaping,  hastening,  and  enforcing  these  relations, 
they  in  no  sense  originate  them. 

Our  next  problem  is  to  explain  the  processes  by  which  they 
are  originated  within  the  man  himself.  If  we  are  successful  in 
this  effort,  we  shall  also  be  able  to  define  the  products.  A 
delineation  of  the  genesis  or  growth  of  these  conceptions  will 
involve  an  analysis  and  definition  of  their  elements. 

But  here  we  are  met  with  the  theory,  that  the  original  and 
fundamental   conceptions   in   morals,   inasmuch   as 

Theory  Tery 

they  are  simple,  have  no  proper  growth  or  genesis,   common  that 
and  are  incapable  of   analysis  or  definition ;   that,   ^"Jifare^** 
though  they  originate  within  the  human  soul,  they  simple  and 
are  among  the  so-called  original  relations  or  cate- 
gories, which  have  the  same  relations  to  the  activities  of  the 
will  as  the  categories  of  thought  hold  to  the  judgments  of  the 


134  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL   SCIENCE.  [§  48. 

intellect.  Of  these  original  conceptions,  it  is  contended,  we  can 
state  the  psychological  conditions  indeed ; .  but,  being  in  their 
nature  original  and  simple,  they  can  neither  be  derived,  nor 
analyzed,  nor  defined.  All  that  we  can  say  of  them  is,  that,  at 
a  certain  juncture  of  every  man's  history,  these  conceptions  are 
necessarily  discerned  and  assented  to,  and  in  connection  with 
them  are  experienced  the  appropriate  moral  emotions  or  sen- 
timents, as  of  obligation,  merit,  etc.  By  all  who. hold  this 
theory,  the  relations  themselves  are  ranked  with  the  original 
intuitions  which  are  fundamental  to  knowledge  of  eyery  kind ; 
as  the  relations  of  time,  space,  causation,  and  design,  which 
stand  on  their  own  footing,  and,  being  incapable  of  analysis, 
are  original  and  fundamental  to  ethical  and  jural  science  in  the 
same  sense  as  the  relations  of  space  are  fundamental  to  geom- 
etry, the  relations  of  cause  to  physics,  and  of  design  to  physi- 
ology and  history.  They  teach  us,  furthermore,  that  the  special 
categories  of  morals,  when  applied  to  the  feelings  and  actions, 
are  also  attended  with  certain  sentiments  or  emotions,  —  as 
of  obligation,  merit,  and  self -approbation,  with  their  opposites, 
—  each  of  which  is  peculiar  in  its  nature,  and  incapable  of 
being  explained  by,  or  of  explaining,  the  relation  which  occa- 
sions it. 

This  general  theory  of  the  moral  relations  and  sentiments 
has  been  held  in  various  forms  and  with  a  great  variety  of 
phraseology  by  different  philosophers,  in  different  ages,  but 
with  the  common  features  already  enumerated.  The  counter  or 
antagonistic  theories  are  also  very  diverse  in  points  of  detail ; 
but  they  hold  in  common,  that  the  moral  relations  are  complex 
In  their  nature,  and  capable  of  being  defined  by  an  analysis  of 
their  elements  ;  that  they  are  genetic  in  their  growth,  and  there- 
fore admit  of  analysis,  and  are  capable  of  a  history.  Their 
advocates  also  hold  that  the  sentiments  which  they  elicit  are 
sentiments  altogether  unique  and  peculiar,  while  yet  they  are 
the  constant  attendants  of  these  conceptions,  and  in  a  certain 
sense  are  explained  by  them. 


"CJNiyEHSIT^ 

§49.]  OBIGIN  AND  NATUBE  OF  MORAL  B^S^iQfiS.lZi 


It  will  be  obgerved  that  all  these  theories,  however 
'  nistic  they  are  in  other  particulars,  have  this  in  common,  — 
that  they  find   the  origin  of   ethical  conceptions  and   feelings 
within  the  individual  man,  and  wholly  reject  the  doctrine  that 
makes  them  the  products  of  external  influences  and  teachings. 

§  49.  The  several  theories  which  teach  that  the  fundamental 
ethical  Concepts  and  sentiments  are   original,  and  Held  in  vari^ 
incapable  of  analysis  or 'definition,  maybe  grouped  o«s  forms, 
into  three  classes,  as  follows  :  — 

(1)  The  theory  which  ascribes  them,  in  the  last  resort,  to  a 
special  faculty  of  sensibility  called  the  moral  sense. 
This  power  is  conceived  with  more  or  less  definite-  rj  ot  the 
ness  as  originally  a  capacity  for  peculiar  feelings  or  *"^^**  *®"^®* 
sentiments  called  the  moral  sentiments  ;  such  as  the  feelings  of 
the  beauty  and  deformity  of  virtuous  and  vicious  acts,  of  self- 
approval  or  disapproval,  of  obligation  and  good  or  ill  desert. 
These  emotions  are  supposed  to  be  uniformly  experienced  or 
evoked  with  and  by  certain  actions  or  volitions.  The  capacity 
for  these  feelings  is  held  to  be  an  original  endowment,  and  the 
feelings  themselves  to  be  ultimate,  i.e.,  incapable  of  analysis. 
These  feelings  are  the  original  sentiments  in  the  moral  life,  and 
the  capacity  for  them  is  the  germinant  principle  of  all  our  moral 
ideas.  We  simply  find  ourselves  experiencing  and  using  them, 
and  tliat  is  all  that  we  can  say.  The  intellect  discerns  the 
conduct  which  occasions  these  subjective  experiences  or  emo- 
tions, and  connects  the  two  in  original  moral  judgments.  The 
conduct  or  character  which  pleases  the  moral  sense,  it  pro- 
nounces morally  good  or  morally  right :  that  which  displeases' 
it  is  distinguished  as  morally  wrong.  By  this  theory  the  sensi- 
bility is  the  originator  of  the  ethical  experiences.  The  several 
sensibilities,  being  themselves  ultimate  and  inexplicable,  are  as 
incapable  of  definition  as  are  the  several  bodily  sensations. 
The  intellectual  conceptions  are  referred  to  and  defined  by  the 
sentiments,  just  as  the  sensible  qualities  of  matter  are  defined 
by  the  sensations  which  they  occasion.     The  theory  itself,  in 


136  ELEMENTS  OF  MOBAL  SCIENCE.         [§§  50, 51. 

some  of  its  elements,  is  suggested,  if  not  taught,  by  Plato, 
and  is  Often  referred  to  the  Platonic  school.  Its  most  distin- 
guished  expounders  are  Shaftesbury,  Hutcheson,  Hume,  Her- 
bart,  and  many  others. 

§  50.   (2)  The  second  of  these  theories  finds  the  original  of 
'  ,«  mw.  X,.       <^ur  moral  relations*  in  the  pure  intellect,  or  the  rea- 

(2;  Thetheo-  ^  ' 

ryofthe  SOU ;  I.e.,  in  certain  ethical  categories,  which,  as 
we  have  already  said,  take  rank  with  those  that  are 
fundamental  to  the  intellect,  beginning  with  an  intellectual 
element  or  germ,  as  the  preceding  theories  begin  with  an  emo- 
tional. They  all  hold  in  common,  that  the  intellectual  element 
Js  primary  and  fundamental,  the  emotional  following  this  by 
a  certain  but  unexplained  connection.  ''It  is  absurd,'*  says 
Dugald  Stewart,  "  to  ask  why  we  are  bound  to  practise  virtue. 
The  very  notion  of  virtue  implies  the  notion  of  obligation.'* 
What  is  true  of  the  sentiment  of  obligation  is  true  of  the  other 
feelings,  as  of  self-approbation  or  disapprobation,  of  merit  and 
demerit.  The  relation  is  self-evident  to  the  intellectual  judg- 
ment or  assent,  and  the  sentiments  or  feelings  attend  them  by 
an  equally  necessary  but  unexplained  coherence.  The  advo- 
cates of  this  theory  are  numerous  and  conspicuous.  We  name 
Ralph  Cudworth,  Richard  Price,  Thomas  Reid,  Dugald  Stewart, 
Sir  William  Hamilton,  President  James  McCosh,  Professor 
Henry  Calderwood,  and  Dr.  Laurens  P.  Hickok. 

§  51.   (3)  The  third  theory,  if  it  be  proper  to  recognize  it  as  a 
„  _      ,       third,  and  not  as  in  principle  the  same  with  the  first, 

(8)  Thetheo-  '  r  f  » 

ryofthe  is  represented  by  Kant  and  his  ethical  followers, 
reason  "or  '^^^^  theory  finds  a  faculty  called  the  practical  rea- 
categoricai  son,  which  presents  to  the  will  an  authoritative  judg- 
ment technically  called  the  categoncal  imperative. 
To  this  the  will  responds  by  reverence  which  impels  to  action. 
This  theory,  as  it  would  seem,  is  a  combination  of  the  two  pre- 
ceding, except  that  Kant  earnestly  denies  that  reverence  before 
the  law  is  a  sentiment ;  contending  that  it  is  an  authoritative 
impulse  or  commanding  force  which  emerges  into  human  experi- 


§52.]  ORIGIN  AND  NATUBE  OF  MOBAL  BELATI0N8.  137 

ence  on  appropriate  occasions,  as  the  practical  reason  cate- 
gorically commands  and  forbids  certain  acts>of  the  will.,  It 
does  not  say,  feel  or  do  so  or  so  if  you  would  be  happy,  or  ful- 
fil  the  end  of  your  being,  or  realize  tHe  dignity  of  man,  but  do 
so  or  so :  and  that  is  all  that  is  to  be  said  ;  you  have  the  com- 
mand, obey  it  (Sic  volo,  sicjubeo). 

Another  more  striking  peculiarity  of  the  Kantian  theory  is, 
that  it-  seeks  to  exclude  the  element  of  sensibility  altogether 
from  the  domain  of  ethics  ;  holding  that  a  virtuous  action,  if  im- 
pelled or  motived  at  all  by  any  consideration  of  happiness,  even 
the  satisfaction  found  in  right  action,  is  thereby  corrupted  at 
the  root,  and  ceases  altogether  to  be  morally  good.  These  and 
other  features  distinguish  this  theory  from  the  other  two.  In 
common  with  both,  it  teaches  that  the  conceptions  and  emotions 
are  simple  and  original,  and  have  no  relation  of  dependence  or 
connection  with  one  another.  This  theory  is  held  by  Kant  and  his 
followers.  Of  well-known  writers,  the  most  conspicuous  among 
his  English  disciples  is  F.  W.  Cobbe,  the  author  of  "Intuitive 
Morals  "  (London,  1855  ;  Boston,  1859).  With  this  theory  the 
adherents  of  Price,  etc.,  have  an  intimate  intellectual  affiliation. 

The  advocates  of  these  three  theories  have  this  in  common, 
that  they  incline  to  conceive,  and  many  of  them  formally  hold, 
that  the  source  of  these  original  relations  and  feelings,  one  or 
both,  is  in  some  sort  an  independent  faculty,  which  has  no 
necessary  connection  with  the  normal  endowments  and  experi- 
ences of  human  nature,  whether  intellectual  or  emotional,  but 
might  be  attached  to  or  detached  from  the  human  soul,  with 
little,  if  any,  serious  disturbance  to  the  other  endowments, 
except  so  far  as  to  limit  or  enlarge  their  range  of  jy  Tjietheo- 

action.  ry  that  they 

§  52.  IV.  In  opposition  to  all  these  three  classes  net  of  a 

of  theories,  we  hold  that  moral  relations  and  feelinojs  special  appii- 

^     cation  of  self- 
require  no  special  faculty  or  endowment,  whether  it  consciousness 

be  called  the  moral  reason,  or  moral  sense,  or  prac-  *"^^^**** 

tical  reason ;    but  that  they   are   the   necessary   products   or 


138  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL   SCIENCE.  [§  52. 

results  of  two  conspicuous  human  endowments, — the  reflec- 
tive intellect,  and  the  voluntary  impulses  or  afifections.  The 
reflective  intellect  cannot  but  find  the  norm  or  standard  of 
duty  in  the  natural  capacities  of  man.  So  soon  as  it  conceives 
of  any  ideal  whatever  for  aspiration  or  control  —  so  soon  as 
it  recognizes  such  an  ideal,  it  necessarily  imposes  it  as  a  law 
for  the  voluntary  activities.  This  ideal,  thus  recognized  and 
imposed,  becomes  a  moral  law :  in  other  words,  so  soon  as 
the  intellect  reflects  upon  the  several  sensibilities  which  are 
subject  to  the  control  of  the  will,  as  compared  with  one 
another,  it  must  find  a  standard  of  ideal  desirableness  or  worth 
for  its  springs  of  action.  So  soon  as  it  proposes  to  itself  the 
question,  How  are  they  to  be  applied  or  controlled  by  the  will? 
the  reflecting  man  imposes  this  ideal  upon  the  choosing  man  as 
a  law  of  voluntary  action  ;  i.e.,  of  conduct  and  character.  So 
far,  also,  as  the  reflecting  or  self-conscious  man  finds  in  the 
relative  excellence  of  these  springs  of  action,  or  in  their  effects, 
an  indication  of  the  ends  or  purposes  to  which  man's  capacities 
for  action  are  adapted,  so  far  does  he  find  in  this  constitution 
of  his  being  an  additional  force  of  law,  compelling  his  rational 
approval,  and  requiring  his  voluntary  consent. 

According  to  this  theory,  the  moral  relations,  so  far  as  they 
are  rational  or  intellectual,  are  not  original  categories,  but  are 
the  necessary  result  of  a  special  application  of  the  category 
of  adaptation  or  design.  It  also  follows  that  the  sentiments  of 
self-approbation,  obligation,  and  merit,  are  also  special  appli- 
cations of  the  commonly  recognized  human  sensibilities,  as 
affected  by  man's  free  and  personal  activity  when  reviewed  by 
man's  conscious  or  reflective  judgment.  It  follows,  that  the 
moral  nature  or  the  moral  faculty  are  but  other  names  for  the 
human  faculties  when  employed  upon  a  special  subject-matter, 
and  in  a  peculiar  manner.  The  products  of  this  special  but 
natural  mode  of  activity  are  moral  ideas  and  moral  emotions. 
It  is  held,  further,  that  these  products,  so  far  as  they  are  gen- 
eralized concepts,  can  be  explained  by  their  genesis,  can   be 


^5S.]0RIGm  AND  NATUBE  OF  MOBAL  BELATIONS.  139 

analyzed  into  their  constituents,  and  defined  by  them.  More- 
over, they  can  be  recognized  as  holding  important  relations  with 
the  other  laws  and  forces  of  the  universe,  and  so  take  their 
place  in  the  general  theory  of  matter  and  spirit. 

Upon  this  theory,  also,  the  moral  sentiments  can  be  fully 
justified  as  being  not  only  the  most  powerful,  but  the  most 
rational,  emotions  which  man  experiences,  and  thus  vindicate 
their  acknowledged  right  to  be  supreme  in  their  authority  over 
man  and  in  the  counsels  and  laws  of  the  supreme  Reason. 

The  only  method  of  settling  the  question  between  these 
theories  is  to  appeal  to  consciousness.     In  order  to  . 

do  this  successfully,  we  must  understand  the  im-  tested  by  con- 
port  of  the  theories  in  conflict,  and  then  proceed  to  ^<'*^"^"®^*- 
inquire  which  corresponds  to  human  consciousness  and  experi- 
ence ;  which,  also,  is  confirmed  by  the  language  and  conduct  of 
man  ;  and,  again,  which  is  also  logically  self-consistent  in  what 
it  asserts  and  implies ;  and,  finally,  which  adjusts  itself  to  a 
rational  theory  of  the  universe. 

Pursuing  this  method,  — 

§  53.   (1)  We  find,  first  of  all,  that  moral  qualities  and  rela- 
tions are  aflSrmed  of  the  voluntary  actions  of  spirit- 
ual beings,  and  of  these  only,      (a)  They  pertain  quaiitieT 
to  spiritual  beings.      Moral   distinctions  or  ethical  affirmed  only 

.of  spiritual 

conceptions  are  not   vague   entities   or   mysterious  beings  and 
abstracta,  floating  in  the  empyrean  of  a  hazy  or  soar-  *^®^'"  ^®^"^" 
ing  imagination,  nor  are  they  concrete  entities  or 
phenomena ;  but  they  pertain  exclusively  to  voluntary  agents. 
Rightness,  virtue,  goodness,  and  their  opposites, — wrongness, 
vice,    badness,  —  are   indeed   abstracta;   but   the   realities   for 
which  they  stand  are  attributes   or  relations  which   belong  to 
those  agents  which  are  fitted  by  nature  to  hold  them,     (b)  They 
are  affirmed  of  the  inner  or  spiritual  activities  of  these  beings. 
Bodily  activities  alone  are  neither  right  nor  wrong.     An  articu- 
lation of  the  tongue,  a  movement  or  stroke  of  the  arm,  an 
adjustment  of  the"  features,  apart  from  what  either  signifies  or 


140  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL-  SCIENCE.  [§  53. 

effects,  is  neither  right  nor  wrong.  Even  if  their  effects  are 
good  or  evil,  —  as  in  the  accidental  destruction  of  property  or 
life,  or  the  unintended  hurt  to  the  feelings  by  an  ill-timed  word, 
—  such  effects  or  acts  are  not  and  can  not  be  wrong,  (c)  They 
are  also  limited  to  the  voluntary  affections.  Acts  of  pure  cog- 
nition are  of  and  by  themselves  neither  right  nor  wrong.  The 
intellect  is  such  in  its  nature  that  its  perceptions  and  beliefs 
must  follow  certain  conditions  as  their  necessary  effects.  If 
it  is  applied  with  attention  to  a  certain  object-matter,  it  must 
perceive  and  judge  and  believe  so  and  so.  We  call  its  knowl- 
edge right  or  wrong  in  the  sense  of  being  true  or  false ;  but,  so 
far  as  it  is  an  act  or  result  of  pure  intellect,  we  do  not  call  it 
morally  right  or  wrong. 

Acts  of  emotion  as  such,  i.e.,  considered  apart  from  the 
will,  have  no  moral  quality.  We  now  and  then  call  such  emo- 
tions right  and  wrong,  but  in  the  sense  of  befitting ;  i.e.,  appro- 
priate to  the  object  or  occasion,  but  never  morally  right  or 
wrong.  It  is  only  as  the  feelings  are  controlled  or  modified  by 
the  will  that  they  admit  any  moral  quality.  We  are  shut  up 
to  the  conclusion  that  right  and  wrong  can  be  aflSrmed  of  the 
acts  or  states  of  the  will,  and  of  these  only. 

As  Butler  expresses  the  matter,  ''The  object  of  this  faculty 
of  moral  discernment  is  actions,  comprehending  under  that  name 
active  or  practical  principles,  —  those  principles  from  which  men 
would  act  if  occasions  and  circumstances  gave  them  power,  and 
which,  when  fixed  and  habitual  in  any  person,  we  call  his  char- 
acter. It  does  not  appear  that  brutes  have  the  least  reflex  sense 
of  actions  as  distinguished  from  events,  or  that  will  and  design, 
which  constitute  the  very  nature  of  actions  as  such,  are  at  all 
an  object  to  their  perception.  But  to  ours  they  are  ;  and  they 
are  the  object,  and  the  only  one,  of  the  approving  and  disap- 
proving faculty." — Dissertation,  II. 

Moral  quality  belongs  only  to  the  volitions,  whether  perma- 
nent or  transient,  —  to  the  volitions,  be  it  observed,  not  to  their 
objects  or  conditions  of  choice,  but  solely  to  *the  acts  or  states 


§  53.]  Oi^JGJJV  AND  NATURE  OF  MOBAL  BELATIONS.  141 

themselves.     We  say,  indeed,  and  not  incorrectly,  that  a  man 

chooses  or  rejects  the  right  or  the  wrong,  as  science  or  wealth, 

or  private  or  public  good  ;  but  we  intend  by  the  words,  objects 

that  are  fit  to  be  chosen,  i.e.,  objects  which,  if  chosen,  involve 

a  right  or  wrong  choice.     In  other  words,  moral  qualities  and 

relations  are  limited  to  the  person  and  his  personal  volitions, 

and  cannot  he  affirmed  of  his  motives  or  reasons. 

(2)  That  the  volitions  may  be  judged  to  be  morally  right  or 

wrong,  they  must  be   measured   or  tried   by  some 

standard.     The  standard  by  which  they  are  tried  is  a^ts  and"*^ 

the  natural  capacities  of  the  agent.     "Ourpercep-   states  when 

tion  of  vice  and  ill-desert  arises  from  a  comparison  man's  natu- 

of   actions  with  the  nature   and   capacities  of   the  ^**  capaci- 
ties, 
agent"  (Butler,  Diss.,  II.).     Every  man,  so  far  as 

he  reflects  upon  his  several  desires  and  impulses,  knows  his 
nature  and  capacities,  knows  their  comparative  excellence,  in 
the  natural  good  ^  which  their  exercise  involves.  So  far  as  he 
compares  love  with  hatred,  self-sacrifice  with  self-service,  appe- 
tite with  the  higher  emotions,  he  knows  their  worth,  even  before 
they  are  controlled  by  the  will.  And  he  cannot  but  imagine 
what  he  might  be  and  enjoy  were  he  to  make  this  naturally 
better  morally  supreme.  He  cannot  turn  his  eye  inwards  with- 
out to  some  extent  foraiing  an  ideal  standard  derived  from  the 
range  of  his  actual  and  possible  sensibilities  by  which  to  test 


1  **  In  the  natvral  good"  let  it  be  observed,  which  the  exercise  of  any 
affection  involves.  Otherwise  we  should  suppose  the  child  to  have  first 
known  the  blessedness  of  moral  perfection  in  order  to  feel  its  authority  as 
duty.  But  the  child  has  had  experience  of  the  exercise  of  many  of  the 
kindly  and  loving  experiences  (as  pity,  kindliness,  magnanimity,  etc.) 
which  are  so  familiar  in  infant  life.  Out  of  any  of  these,  it  requires  little 
reflection  for  either  man  or  child  to  form  an  ideal  conception  of  the  bless- 
edness and  worth  which  lie  dormant  within,  and  wait  only  to  be  wakened 
by  the  life-giving  will.  It  is  in  a  twofold  and  eminent  sense  that  we  call 
the  law  of  duty  an  ideal  law.  It  is  ideal  not  only  when  it  is  contrasted 
with  the  imperfection  of  actual  achievement,  but  in  the  very  elements  of 
its  own  existence  (cf.  §§  02,  05). 


142  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL  SCIENCE.  [§  54. 

and  judge  his  volitions.  So  soon  as  he  compares  these  emotions, 
he  judges  the  one  to  be  better,  naturally  better,  than  the  other, 
even  before  he  has  allowed  or  repressed  either  by  his  will.  So  far 
as  he  compares  and  reflects  upon  what  he  is  capable  of  in  the 
better  of  these  impulses,  he  must  form  a  standard  of  ideal  good. 
This  standard  he  must  in  some  sense  desire  to  make  real  by  con- 
forming to  it  his  will.  If  he  desires  good  of  any  sort  by  an 
instinctive  impulse,  he  must  be  impelled  towards  that  good 
which  is  the  highest  and  best.  So  far  as  he  exercises  reason  or 
forecast,  there  must  spring  up  before  him  the  vision  of  ideal 
good,  whether  it  is  or  is  not  turned  into  fact.  So  soon  as  he 
looks  forward  into  the  future,  and  sees  that  there  is  an  oppor- 
tunity for  the  realization  of  this  ideal,  he  cannot  but  propose  this 
ideal  to  himself  as  a  rule  for  his  future  volitions.  He  cannot 
do  otherwise  as  a  rational  being.  Thus,  by  combining  freedom 
with  self-consciousness,  man  becomes  a  law  to  himself  by  the 
necessities  of  his  own  being.  The  reflecting  man  must  neces- 
sarily become  the  law-giver  to  the  choosing  man.^ 

To  the  same  effect,  says  Bishop  Butler,  ''  there  is  a  superior 
principle  of  reflection  or  conscience  in  every  man,  which  dis- 
tinguishes between  the  internal  principles  of  his  heart  as  well 
as  his  external  actions ;  which  passes  judgment  upon  himself 
thereon  ;  pronounces  determinately  some  actions  to  be  in  them- 
selves just,  right,  and  good,  others  to  be  in  themselves  evil, 
wrong,  unjust ;  which,  without  being  consulted,  without  being 
advised  with,  magisterially  exerts  itself,  and  approves  or  con- 
demns him  the  doer  of  these  accordingly,"  etc. — Sermons  on 
Human  Nature^  ii. 

§  54.  (3)  He  also  finds  the  end  or  design  for  which  he  exists 
in  the  constitution  and  capacities  of  his  being  which  we  have 
noticed.     So  soon  as  the  question  is  suggested  to  his  thoughts, 


1  Kant  thus  characterizes  a  person :  — 

**  From  which  it  follows  that  a  i^erson  is  subject  to  no  otl)cr  laws  than 
those  which  he  imposes  on  himself."  —  AnJ'angs-Grunde  dcr  liechts  Lehre. 


^5^.}0BIGIN  AND  NATVBE  OF  3I0RAL  BELATIONS.  143 

"For  what  do  I  exist,  and  how  can  I  fulfil   the  end  of  my 
being?"  he  cannot  but  answer,  "In  choosing  the 

,       .  ,       ,       .    .  1  ,  .   ,      (3)  By  these 

highest  object,  or  obeying  the  best  impulses,  which  natural  ca- 
my  nature  provides  for  or  makes  possible."  As  a  f*^"!*^®^.  ** 
rational  being,  he  compares  and  classifies  the  phe-  the  end  for 
nomena  of  his  inner  life.  He  refers  them  to  their  ^^f^^^^*"® 
originator  in  the  self  that  produces  them.  He  in- 
terprets the  working  of  these  forces  by  referring  to  the  condi- 
tions or  laws  under  which  they  act.  When  he  asks,  What  are 
they  for?  for  what  end  do  they  exist?  or  for  what  are  they  created 
and  intended  ?  he  finds  the  answer  by  referring  to  the  highest  use 
which  is  within  his  knowledge  and  his  control.  His  first  answer 
would  be  the  predominance  of  the  best  impulses,  because  they  are 
known  to  be  naturally  best.  So  much  the  more,  if  this  product 
is  within  his  own  power,  and  entirely  beyond  the  interference  of 
any  other  agent,  —  so  much  the  more  distinctly,  —  must  such  an 
exercise  of  his  best  activities  be  owned  as  the  end  for  which  he 
exists  (cf .  Trendelenburg,  Der  Wider streit  zwischen  Kant  und 
Aristoteles  in  der  Ethih;  Historische  Beitrdge,  etc.,  dritter  Band, 
pp.  201,  202).  But  the  end  for  which  the  activities  of  our 
being  are  fitted,  so  soon  as  it  is  discerned,  is  at  once  accepted 
as  also  a  laiv  for  their  action,  whether  this  law  is  obeyed  by  a 
natural  necessity,  as  in  the  harmonious  activities  of  vegetable  or 
animal  life,  or  can  be  self-discerned  and  self-imposed  by  the 
intelligent  and  reflective  man.  A  force  of  any  sort,  whether 
natural  or  spiritual,  asserts  its  energy,  and  so  bespeaks  its  law- 
giving power  in  the  effects  which  it  brings  to  pass  :  hence  we  so 
often  interpret  the  forces  which  constitute  our  being  as  the  laws 
which  control  it.  More  readily  do  we  interpret  the  ends  for 
which  these  forces  conspire  as  internal  laws  which  we  cannot 
evade.  A  combination  of  forces  tending  towards  any  end, 
whether  within  or  without,  is  invested  with  augmented  energy. 
But,  when  such  forces  and  tendencies  are  self-discerned  by  the 
intelligent  spirit,  they  are  at  once  recognized  as  more  than 
unconscious  agencies :  they  enforce  themselves  at  once  as  rea- 


144  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL  SCIENCE.  [§  55. 

sonable  law.  Indeed,  it  is  not  till  the  purpose  or  end  of  any 
existing  thing  is  ascertained,  that  its  nature  is  fully  understood. 
So  soon  as  this  purpose  is  discerned  as  supreme,  it  is  at  once 
accepted  as  the  rightful  or  reasonable  law  of  its  acting,  whether 
this  acting  is  necessary  or  free.  Pre-eminently  is  this  true  of 
a  free  and  reflecting  being  who  knows  the  end  of  his  living  self 
by  a  direct  and  conscious  insight  into  the  nature  and  degree 
of  the  good  which  he  can  propose  to  himself  as  the  law  of  his 
active  energy.  The  authority  of  such  a  law  is  resistless,  spring- 
ing out  of  his  very  nature,  and  discerned  by  his  reason,  beyond 
which  there  is  no  appeal.  This,  be  it  remarked,  is  reached  so 
far  as  the  individual  is  related  to  himself.  The  other  applica- 
tions of  the  category  of  design  present  themselves  with  widen- 
ing and  heightened  authority,  as  man's  relations  to  his  fellows, 
to  the  physical  universe,  and  to  God,  are  discovered,  and  the 
ends  for  which  he  exists  are  seen  to  include  other  beings  in  the 
rational  harmony  and  order,  and  the  consequent  well-being,  of 
the  universe. 

§  55.   (4)  The  processes  analyzed  give  the  essential  elements 
of  the  conception  of  moral  good,  and  enable  us  to 

(4)  These  pro-  *  ° 

cesses  of  re-  define  it  as  follows :  moral  good  is  the  voluntary 
threieni^nts  <^^^^^^^  ^f  ^^^^  highest  natural  good  possible  to  man, 
of  moral  good  as  Jcnown  to  himself  and  by  himself,  and  interpreted 
as  the  end  of  his  existence  and  ax^ivities.  The 
activity  must  be  voluntary  if  it  involves  responsibility.  Its 
relations  to  the  several  capacities  of  man's  being  must  be 
known  by  himself,  and  accepted  as  the  end  of  his  existence,  and 
imposed  as  the  law  of  his  activity.  Otherwise  it  cannot  be 
discovered  and  enforced  independently  of  external  aid  and 
authority.  External  relations  and  influences  assist  to  the  dis- 
covery of  those  relations,  but  they  cannot  originate  them. 
All  that  they  can  do,  when  they  are  most  efficient,  is  to  direct 
and  excite  the  mind  to  an  earlier  and  easier  reflection.  They 
can  simply  inform  the  man  what  he  will  find  if  he  looks,  and 
furnish  the  language  in  which  he  can  clothe  his  own  discoveries. 


^  55.}  OBIGIN  AND  NATURE  OF  MORAL  RELATIONS.  145 

(5)  The  processes  described  can  be  performed  at  a  very  early 
age.     As  has  already  been  said,  whatever  view  is   ^g^  ^y^^^^ 
taken  of  the  moral  relations,  or  the  steps  or  acts  processes  can 

,  ,  .   ,       ,  .,.,..  .    ,  ,         ,,  T    "J^  performed 

by  which  they  are  gained,  it  is  invariably  allowed  at  an  early 
that  the  mind  must  reflect  upon  its  voluntary  acts  in  *^®* 
order  to  judge  of  them  as  right  or  wrong,  and  even  to  under- 
stand these  words  ;  and  this  whether  the  rule  is  given  by  an 
intuition,  an  instinct,  the  categorical  imperative,  or  the  moral 
sense.  Whatever  view  is  taken  of  the  nature  of  the  standard, 
all  agree  that  the  child  must  regard  its  own  activities  with 
discriminating  self -inspection  in  order  to  compare  and  judge 
them  by  a  moral  rule.  But,  if  the  child  is  capable  of  this  self- 
inspection,  in  order  to  apply  the  rule,  it  may  use  the  same 
self-inspection,  that  it  may  discover  the  rule  in  its  own  natural 
capacities  for  higher  and  lower  good. 

That  the  child  is  capable  of  the  processes  which  we  have 
supposed,  is  evident  still  further  from  the  methods  employed  by 
parents  and  teachers  to  awaken  children  to  the  apprehension  of 
the  import  of  moral  distinctions.  That  this  knowledge  cannot 
be  imparted  by  instruction  or  authority  has  already  been  argued 
(§§  41-46).  One  might  as  reasonably  contend  that  the  element- 
ary conceptions  of  pure  geometry  can  be  imparted,  by  mere 
testimony,  as  the  elementary  conceptions  of  ethics. 

That  parents  and  teachers  can  and  do  rouse  the  minds  of  children  to 
the  apprehension  of  moral  relations  will  not  be  disputed.  By 
what  method  ?  Invariably  by  a  method  which  leads  to  in-  „  h-i^i  oo^ 
telligent  self-inspection  ;  technically  speaking,  to  a  process  of 
an  observing  self-consciousness  of  the  powers  and  capacities  of  their  inner 
being.  When  the  mother  would  awaken  or  stimulate  the  moral  conscious- 
ness of  the  child,  she  invariably  asks,  Was  there  not  a  better  activity  of 
your  nature  which  you  could  have  called  into  exercise  ?  Would  not  self- 
sacrificing  or  self-imparting  love  have  been  better  than  self-appropriating 
desire,  when  these  two  came  in  conflict?  Is  not  appetite  denied,  i.e.,  dis- 
placed by  a  higher  impulse,  better  than  appetite  slavishly  or  selfishly 
obeyed?  As  the  child  responds  Avhen  convinced,  or  assents  even  more 
eloquently  by  silence,  it  shows  that  it  has  followed  the  challenging  inquiry 
by  turning  its  eye  inward  to  comisare  for  itself  the  higher  with  the  inferior 


146  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL   SCIENCE, 


[§56. 


good ;  or,  as  it  lifts  its  eye  again  to  meet  the  searching  eye  of  parent  or 
monitor,  it  shows  by  its  altered  expression  what  it  has  found  within.  In- 
deed, we  may  almost  say  that  the  dawning  and  progressive  activity  of 
ethical  self-consciousness  may  be  discerned  in  the  new  expression  which 
the  eye  of  infancy  assumes  when  it  makes  its  first  experiences  of  respon- 
sible self-activity  and  judgment.  The  eye  of  many  animals  is  penetrating 
and  active  :  the  eye  of  others  is  singularly  human  and  affectionate.  In 
man  alone  does  it  manifest  the  self-judging  and  introverted  expression 
which  is  too  often  also  self-condemning  or  self-excusing. 

§  56.  This  process  of  self-judgment  may  begin  with  the 
Are  con.  cMWs  rudimentary  life^  aiid  be  matured  and  trained 
tinued  after    ^^^^  the  development  of  its  powers.     So  soon  as  the 

deTelopment 

into  man-  mfant  Can  distmguish  between  the  natural  desirable- 
hood,  jjggg  Qf  ^^Q  emotions,  or  springs  of  action,  he  can 
distinguish  them,  when  brought  in  conflict,  as  morally  good  or 
evil.  The  conflicting  and  contrasted  impulses  may  be  the 
simplest  conceivable,  —  only  two  contending  impulses  to  self- 
sacrifice  or  self-indulgence,  to  love  or  hate,  such  as  early  and 
often  contend  within  the  breast  of  the  child.  If  the  child 
reflects  at  all,  he  cannot  but  know  that  the  one  is  or  would  be 
the  better  use  of  his  powers  than  the  rival. 

"  Early  he  perceives 
Within  himself  a  measure  and  a  rule. 
Which  to  the  sun  of  truth  he  can  apply, 
That  shines  for  him,  and  shines  for  all  mankind." 

TAe  Excursion,  book  iv. 

The  ideally  good  is  no  sooner  known  —  usually,  i.e.,  the  pos- 
sibly better,  —  than  it  is  applied  as  a  measure  of  the  actual 
attainments.  As  the  child's  conceptions  of  the  possibilities  of 
his  nature  enlarge,  just  so  rapidly  does  the  standard  of  moral 
goodness  rise.  Man  can  sooner  part  with  his  shadow  when  he 
stands  in  the  open  sunlight,  than  he  can  shake  off  or  lose  sight 
of  that  ideal  of  duty  which  he  finds  in  his  own  capacities  of 
good  when  viewed  in  the  light  of  his  reflective  judgment. 
The  law  proposed  by  self-reflecting  reason  is  indeed  an  ideal 


§  57.]OBIGIN  AND  NATUBE  OF  MORAL  RELATIONS.  147 

law.  It  presents  what  is  possible,  not  what  is  actually  achieved. 
The  inner  law-giver  imagines  what  he  might  be, 
before  he  affirms  what  he  is.  But  this  presents  no  or  law,  is 
difficulty.  On  any  view  of  the  origin  and  nature 
of  the  moral  relations,  they  must  be  regarded  as  ideal,  and  not 
as  necessarily  actual  (§  2)  :  indeed,  herein  is  their  glory,  and 
their  power  to  elevate  and  transform.  No  man  would  confess 
that  the  standard  by  which  he  judges  the  actual  in  himself  or 
his  fellow-men  is  transcribed  from  the  actual  realizations  of 
either.  This  were  to  lower  ideal  and  moral  law  to  man's  defec- 
tive achievements.  But,  though  the  law  is  ideal,  it  is  founded 
on  solid  fact ;  it  is  derived  from  the  capacities  of  our  being,  the 
end  and  use  for  which  we  exist  and  hold  our  place  in  the  econ- 
omy of  the  universe,  and  the  purposes  of  the  living  God.  It 
is  one  thing  to  have  an  ideal  which  has  no  known  and  necessary 
relations  to  the  actual,  and  to  find  it  and  be  forced  to  use  it, 
we  know  not  why,  by  instinct  or  impulse,  and  the  like ;  and 
altogether  another  to  find  its  basis  in  the  actual  capacities 
which  are  provided  in  man's  nature.  In  the  latter  case  alone 
do  we  find  the  ideal  in  the  really  possible,  and  for  this  reason  is 
such  an  ideal  wholly  rational.  We  also  find  it  in  the  end  or 
design  for  which  we  exist,  and  therefore  we  use  it  as  the 
measure  of  our  beings'  perfection. 

§  57.  Thus  far  have  we  confined  our  attention  almost  exclu- 
sively to  man's  relations   to  himself;   i.e.,  to  the 
workings  of  his  nature,  were  we  to  suppose  that  he  ^an>s  ,^13. 
existed   alone.     Such  a  view   limits  very  narrowly  tionstoWs 

-^  *^    fellows. 

the  range  of  man's  duties,  as,  indeed,  of  his  experi- 
ences and  knowledge  of  every  kind.  In  order  to  expand  this 
range,  he  must  know  that  his  fellows  are  moral  beings  like 
himself,  under  the  same  moral  law,  and  designed  for  the  same 
perfection.  How  does  he  know  this?  We  answer,  The  same 
indications  which  show  his  fellows  to  be  human  prove  them  to 
be  moral  also.  If  my  fellow-men  are  like  me  in  being  men, 
they  are  like  me  in  being  subject  to  the  same  rule  of  voluntary 


148  ELEMENTS  OF  MOBAL   SCIENCE. 


[§57. 


action,  in  proposing  to  themselves  the  same  ends,  and  judging 
of  themselves  by  the  same  standards.  They  exist  for  the  same 
ends  with  myself,  —  the  voluntary  realization  of  the  same  per- 
fection. They  together  constitute  a  social  whole  in  the  adapta- 
tions of  their  nature  to  a  moral  organism,  under  the  economy 
of  reason  and  of  God.  If  this  is  so,  the  well-being  of  each  is 
not  only  compatible  with,  but  is  conducive  to,  the  well-being  of 
all  the  others.  If  the  voluntary  recognition  of  the  good  of  my 
fellow-man  is  the  noblest  use  of  my  own  nature,  then  the 
reciprocal  return  of  benevolence  from  him  to  me  blesses  him 
as  well  as  myself.  If  I  believe  in  an  orderly  or  rationally 
constituted  system  or  society  of  beings  like  myself,  as  I  must 
in  order  to  have  any  reasoned  or  scientific  knowledge  of  them 
at  all,  I  must  believe  that  the  best  good  of  each  is  conducive 
to  and  compatible  with  the  best  good  of  all  together,  and  that, 
whenever  I  sacrifice  for  the  whole,  I  must  achieve  my  highest 
good,  not  only  in  the  inward  experiences  of  benevolence,  but 
in  the  external  or  corporeal  acts  to  which  these  impel,  and  to 
their  results  in  the  economy  of  the  universe.  To  desire  my 
own  well-being  is  necessary  and  right,  because  I  thereby  secure 
the  end  for  which  I  exist.  To  sacrifice  my  private  and  separate 
good  when  it  is  in  conflict  with  the  good  of  others  is  also  right, 
because  my  highest  good  in  an  orderly  universe  of  moral  beings 
can  never  conflict  with  the  well-being  of  the  commonwealth ; 
and  this  is  a  still  higher  good  and  nobler  end. 

If  the  relations  of  man  to  nature,  as  well  as  to  his  fellows, 
may  be  interpreted  in  their  possibilities  and  their 
moral  law  cuds,  wc  reasonably  assume  that  moral  ends  are 
provided  for.  g^pj-gj^g  ^ygj.  ^y^^Yi  nature  and  man.  If  we  raise 
our  thoughts  still  higher,  and  recognize  each  individual,  as  also 
society  and  nature,  as  the  work  of  a  personal  creator,  for  the 
manifestation  and  fulfilment  of  definite  and  consistent  purposes 
in  a  coherent  and  rational  universe,  we  shall  accept  the  con- 
clusion that  moral  ends  are  not  only  supreme,  but  that  they 
express  the  will  and  law  of  God. 


§  58.]  ORIGIN  AND  NATURE  OF  MORAL  RELATIONS.  149 

§  58.  We  gather  and  recapitulate  the  results  of  our  analysis 
as  follows  :  moral  relations  are  discerned  by  finding  Recapitula- 
and  applying  the  rule  or  measure  of  voluntary  action,  tion. 
which  is  furnished  by  the  nature  of  man  when  this  activity  is 
judged  as  related  to  the  end  of  his  existence.  That  voluntary 
activity  which  proposes  this  supreme  end  is  morally  right :  that 
which  falls  short  of  it  is  morally  wrong.  The  object  of  choice 
to  the  will  is  not  itself  morally  right  or  wrong.  The  motive 
cannot  be  itself  a  choice.  The  best  natural  impulse  or  desire 
which  the  occasion  calls  for  or  admits  must  be  made  supreme  ; 
that  is,  the  object  which  involves  such  a  desire  must  be  chosen. 
A  morally  good  choice  is  a  choice  that  selects  or  prefers  the 
best  end  possible  to  the  nature  of  man  ;  in  other  words,  the  best 
natural  good.  Bonum  mentis  naturale  quum  est  voluntarium, 
Jit  bonum  morale.  That  our  purposes  should  possibly  fail  of 
these  ends  is  an  incident  of  that  exercise  of  the  voluntary 
power  which  is  necessary  to  moral  responsibility.  That  man 
should  be  able  to  find  the  norm  of  his  activity  in  himself  follows 
from  his  being  self-conscious  and  rational.  As  self-conscious, 
he  understands  the  relative  excellence  of  the  impulses  which 
his  nature  provides  for,  and  the  supreme  end  to  which  his 
nature  points.  As  rational,  and  capable  of  self-direction,  he 
must  propose  to  himself  the  best  as  the  norm  or  aim  of  his 
impulses,  whenever  these  are  made  voluntary,  and  must  inva- 
riably impose  this  on  his  will  as  its  law.  When  any  choice  is 
made,  as  self-conscious  he  must  try  and  test  the  quality  of  this 
activity  by  the  rule  or  test  which  he  l!nds  in  his  own  capacities ; 
and,  as  the  result  of  the  comparison,  he  must  discern  the  act 
as  morally  right  or  morally  wrong.  After  having  thus  evolved 
these  conceptions,  he  uses  them  to  try  all  subsequent  choices 
and  acts.  He  need  not  stay  to  analyze  the  newly  discovered 
conception.  He  may  not  even  know  that  it  can  be  analyzed. 
He  simply  asks.  How  can  the  concept  be  correctly  applied  as  a 
rule  or  measure  of  conduct  ?  Moreover,  his  first  finished  and 
distinct  experience  of  right  or  wrong  activity  is  attended  by 


150  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL  SCIENCE. 


[§59. 


the  conviction  that  moral  good  is  superior  to  all  other  good,  and 
moral  evil  surpasses  all  other  evil,  and  both  are  of  supreme 
importance  as  the  highest  and  most  consummate  forms  of 
human  activity. 

§  59.  We  have  followed  thus  far  the  method  of  analysis,  in  order  that  we 
might  discover  the  several  elements,  both  psychological  and 
tioiT  and  *"  metaphysical,  which  are  respectively  present  as  the  conditions 
synthesis.  °^  constituents  of  the  so-called  ethical  processes  and  prod- 
ucts. We  need  only  reverse  the  order,  to  discover  how 
"both  processes  and  products  are  built  up  from  the  elements  of  both  de- 
scriptions. It  will  be  conceded  that  these  processes  are  performed,  and 
their  products  are  evolved,  by  moral  beings  only;  and  that  moral  beings 
are  necessarily  endowed  with  intelligence,  sensibility,  and  will.  They  are 
also  limited  to  psychical  states,  being  applied  to  bodily  acts  only  whenever 
and  so  far  as  these  express  spiritual  feelings  and  purposes.  These  ele- 
ments and  conditions  of  the  ethical  states  and  acts  are  essential  to  the 
import  of  ethical  concepts  ;  so  far,  at  least,  that  these  must  be  defined  as 
acts  or  states  of  rational,  emotional,  and  voluntary  beings. 

All  this  being  granted  by  the  advocates  of  all  the  theories  with  which 
we  are  at  present  concerned,  the  question  which  would  seem  to  present 
itself  to  such  persons  would  be  simply  this  :  given  this  complex  psycho- 
logical substratum  for  all  the  so-called  ethical  qualities  of  human  actions 
which  are  thus  complexly  analyzed  and  defined,  is  it  as  simple  concepts, 
or  as  the  products  of  these  psychological  endowments,  that  they  manifest 
the  end  for  which  man  exists?  And  is  it  as  simple,  or  complex,  that  they 
find  a  place  for  the  voluntary  realization  or  failure  of  this  end,  when 
recognized,  and  thus  provide  for  those  emotions  which  are  confessedly 
present  in  all  ethical  experiences  ?  It  is  conceded  by  all,  that  the  relation 
of  purpose  or  final  cause  is  essential  to  any  satisfactory  ethical  theory. 
It  remains  to  show  in  what  way  this  end,  when  apprehended  by  self- 
consciousness,  necessarily  becomes  invested  with  the  authority  of  law  to 
the  will,  and  also  the  ground  of  self-approbation,  obligation,  and  merit. 
If  this  analysis  is  correct,  it  is  obvious  that  ethical  relations  are  in  some 
sense  conditioned  upon  a  complex  of  psychological  endowments.  If  this 
is  so,  these  elements  must  enter  into  our  definition  of  these  relations,  and 
we  accept  the  analysis  as  the  solution  of  this  much-vexed  question. 

The  fact  cannot  escape  the  thoughtful  reader,  that  end,  and  adaptar 
tion,  and  design,  and  even  God,  are  assumed  as  categories 
Relation  to  qj  thought  in  our  explanation  of  the  nature  of  moral  relations 
and  theoloffi-  ^^  originally  developed  and  reflectively  formulated  in  and  to 
cal  theory.  *^^^  human  mind.  The  same  is  equally  obvious  in  the  expla- 
nation given  of  the  corresponding  emotions,  particularly  that 
of  obligation  (cf .  §§  G2-(>5).    This  should  occasion  no  surprise  to  one  who 


§  59.]  OBIGIN  AND  NATUBE  OF  MORAL  BELATIONS.  151 

reflects  that  no  school  of  psychologists  can  dispense  with  some  sort  of  a 
priori  metaphysics,  not  even  the  positivists.  Even  they  can  neither 
connect,  nor  interpret,  nor  practically  apply,  their  so-called  positive  phe- 
nomena, except  by  the  aid  of  the  categories  of  succession  and  similarity. 
The  evolutionists  draw  more  heavily  than  any  school  upon  an  assumed 

"  far-off  divine  event, 
To  which  the  whole  creation  moves." 

The  force  which  thus  moves  and  is  moved  is  not  hy  their  own  concessions 
"  unknowable,"  at  least  so  far  as  its  self-developing  power  is  concerned. 

Should  it  be  said,  if  this  is  granted  or  assumed,  then  ethics  must  in  the 
last  analysis  be  resolved  into  theology,  and  the  interpretation  and  discov- 
ery of  the  moral  law  must  involve  the  distinct  recognition  of  God  as  giving 
it  reality  and  authority,  we  reply.  This  is  no  more  true  in  ethics  than  it  is 
in  physics.  It  does  not  follow,  however,  that  the  moral  categories  must 
be  analyzed  and  applied  with  a  distinct  apprehension  of  their  completed 
import  in  order  to  their  control  over  the  intellect  and  feelings.  If  a  man 
goes  so  far  as  to  know  that  his  inmost  nature,  by  its  inmost  forces,  works 
for  righteousness,  individually  or  socially,  he  can  understand  the  reality 
and  authority  of  the  moral  law  which  his  own  nature  reveals,  whether  or 
not  he  recognizes  "a  power  not  himself,"  behind  it.  It  does  not  follow, 
that  because  the  recognition  of  design,  or  of  a  purpose  involving  authority 
or  law,  involves  faith  in  the  living  God,  when  all  its  implications  are 
"  evolved,"  that  therefore  ethics  must  necessarily  imply  the  distinct  and 
constant  recognition  of  a  theology.  And  yet  it  may  be  true  that  a  reflec- 
tive analysis  of  our  faith  in  the  moral  order  of  the  universe  may  show  that 
it  logically  implies  faith  in  God,  as  truly  as  our  faith  in  its  natural  order 
implies  faith  in  a  divine  Architect.  One  of  the  most  hopeful  signs  of 
modern  ethical  speculation  is  this,  —  that,  as  we  are  challenged  step  by 
step  to  give  account  of  our  faith  in  duty,  we  are  forced  to  recognize  more 
and  more  distinctly  the  absolute  necessity  of  a  spiritual  rather  than  a 
materialistic  metaphysics  of  the  universe  of  matter  and  spirit,  and  a  theis- 
tic  rather  than  an  agnostic  philosophy.  The  distinct  recognition  of  this 
truth  gives  great  value  and  interest  to  such  a  treatise  as  Professor  T.  H. 
Green's  "  Prolegomena  of  Ethics  "  i  (Oxford,  1884). 

1  Cf.  The  Grammar  of  Assent,  by  J.  P.  Newman,  4th  ed.,  pp.  108-110 ; 
Essays  on  the  Philosophy  of  Theism,  by  William  George  Ward,  London, 
1884,  vol.  ii.  pp.  95  sqq.;  Christianity  and  Morality,  by  Henry  Wage,  M.A., 
lect.  iii.  (first  course);  Righteousness  a  Personal  Relation,  London,  1877;  The 
Relation  between  Ethics  and  Religion,  by  James  Martinbau,  London,  1883, 


152  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL   SCIENCE.  [§  60. 


CHAPTER    IX. 

THE   MORAL   FEELINGS. 

§  60.  The  moral  feelings  or  sentiments  need  to  be  accounted 

for  by  any  theory  which  asks  to  be  received.  It  is 
Place  of  the  j        j  j 

emotions  In     Dot  cnough  that  the  Universally  recognized  ethical 
an  ethical       conceptions  should  be  explained.     The  sentiments  or 

emotions  which  are  distinctively  ethical  must  also  be 
accounted  for.  Those  theories  which  find  these  relations  to  be 
original  categories  in  the  soul,  also  find  the  ethical  emotions  to 
be  original  and  peculiar  experiences.  The  connection  of  the 
moral  emotions  with  the  moral  judgments  they  do  not  attempt 
to  explain.  Indeed,  by  the  very  terms  of  every  one  of  these 
theories  its  advocates  are  relieved  from  the  obligation  to  con- 
nect judgment  with  emotion,  or  emotion  with  judgment.  Each 
accepts,  as  already  furnished,  three  classes  of  original  elements 
or  data:  viz.,  certain  relations  discerned,  or  concepts  appre- 
hended by  the  intellect ;  certain  emotions  felt  or  experienced 
by  the  sensibility  ;  and  the  constant  and  necessary  conjunction 
of  the  two.  On  the  other  hand,  the  explication,  if  successful,  of 
the  one  by  the  other,  or  the  combination  of  the  two  as  natural 
and  necessary,  so  far  forth  strengthens  the  theory  which  assumes 
the  responsibility  of  explaining  some  connection  between  the 
two.  We  proceed  to  show  how  the  discernment  or  develop- 
ment of  moral  relations  by  the  processes  described  in  tlie  last 
chapter,  necessarily  involves  and  accounts  for  those  sentiments 
and  emotions  which  are  universally  recognized  as  moral. 


§61.] 


THE  MORAL  FEELINGS.  153 


§  61.   (1)  Prominent  among  these  emotions  are  the  feelings  of 

self-approval  and  self-reproach.     It  is  obvious,  that,    ^^^  Feelings 

if  man  is  naturally  pleased  with  any  form  of  natural   of  seif-ap- 
.-  ,         -  1      'Ji     proTal  and 

good,  he  must  necessarily  approve  or  be  pleased  with  geif-re- 
its  originator.  If  he  is  offended  and  repelled  by  an  proach. 
evil  effect  to  himself,  he  must  be  offended  by  its  cause.  If  this 
cause  or  originator  is  a  person,  i.e.,  an  intelligent  and  volun- 
tary producer  of  this  good  or  evil,  he  must  pre-eminently  love  or 
be  displeased  with  that  person.  The  feeling,  whether  of  love 
or  hate,  toward  a  personal  cause  of  good  or  evil  to  one's  self,  is 
different  in  quality  and  intensity  from  any  feelings  towards  an 
impersonal  thing,  whether  it  be  animate  or  inanimate.  The 
feelings  of  persons  towards  persons  in  any  relation,  almost 
refuse  to  be  classed  with  the  feelings  of  persons  towards  im- 
personal agents.  Man,  as  a  voluntary  being,  is  capable  of 
originating  good  or  evil  to  himself.  As  such,  he  can  be  and 
he  is  the  sole  cause  of  whatever  good  or  evil  comes  from  the 
impulses  and  affections  which  he  makes  supreme.  As  the 
originator  of  such  good  or  evil  by  himself  to  himself,  his  feel- 
ings rise  to  a  higher  tone.  He  must  approve  and  love  himself, 
or  disapprove  and  hate  himself,  with  a  quality  and  intensity 
that  are  peculiar.^  Both  these  affections  of  self -favor  or  dis- 
favor to  himself  must  in  their  nature  and  experience  be  unique, 
both  as  they  are  personal  affections,  and  as  the  person  is  at  once 
the  giver  and  receiver  of  the  love  or  hatred.  The  fact  that 
man,  by  his  double  nature,  at  once  gives  and  receives,  admin- 
isters and  suffers,  causes  these  correlated  emotions  to  be  the 
most  desired  and  dreaded  of  human  experiences,  the  strongest 
motives  of  human  action,  —  the  most  blessed  of  joys,  or  the 
most  bitter  of  inward  pains.     These  joys  and  pains  deepen  and 

1  (jf  yap  oi  ^lyovvTsg  kqI  TTvpiTolg  daKVOfievoi  tuv  tzuvtu,  izaoxovTuv  e^udev 
vnb  Kaviiaroc:  tj  Kpvovg  fiuXkov  evox^ovvtol  koI  KaKtov  exovolv  '  o^Tug  kTiXKppoTepac 
Ix^i  Tu.  TVXVpo-  Tag  "kvi^ag  ufjirep  e^odev  eTTt(j)epofiivag  •  rd  6e  "  ovng  kfiol  tuv  uTJiog 
eTrahtog  u?iX'eyo)  avrog"  ETzidpv'^ovfievov  Tolg  u[j,apTTjvofj,evoig  evdodev  k^  uvtov 
fiapvTepov  noiEL  r^  aloxpv  to  a^yeivov.  —  PiiUTARCH  de  Tran. 


154  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL  SCIENCE.  [§  62. 

grow  more  intense  as  the  emotions  and  preferences  which  occa- 
sion them  become  more  positive  and  clear  in  view  of  the  mani- 
fold relations  which  they  hold  to  the  individual  himself,  and 
the  persons  with  whom  he  is  connected. 

The  self-produced  good  and  evil  in  this  case,  be  it  observed, 
are  not  gain  and  loss  in  the  form  of  adventitious  good,  or  good 
received  from  without ;  but  they  are  the  good  or  evil  which  are 
involved  in  the  very  exercise  of  the  affections  or  desires.  The 
good  springs  up  from  within.  It  is  not  a  good  of  condition, 
passively  received  from  without,  or  added  by  way  of  reward, 
but  good  of  emotion  within,  which  finds  the  joy  of  a  self- 
bestowed  and  self-received  reward  or  punishment  in  the  very 
exercise  of  the  best  impulses  or  affections.  So  far,  we  have  to 
do  with  self -approbation  and  self-reproach. 

§  62.  (2)  The  feeling  of  obligation  comes  next  in  order.    This 

is  often  styled  the  judgment  of  obligation,  and  so 

tion.  Feel-     often  that  some  acute  philosophers  seem  almost  to 

ingand  Question  whether  the  word  even  suggests  an  emo- 

judgment. 

tion.  The  question  is  fair  and  reasonable.  With 
which  does  the  experience  begin,  —  with  an  emotion,  or  a  judg- 
ment ?  This  uncertainty  may  be  accounted  for  by  the  fact  that 
the  feeling  is  usually  referred  to  some  act  of  duty,  —  often  to 
an  external  act,  which  is  recognized  as  one  which  ought  to  be 
done,  —  the  relation  in  such  cases  being  transferred  from  the 
doer  to  his  deed.  Another  reason  is  found  in  the  fact,  as  we 
shall  soon  explain,  that  the  elementary  feeling  of  obligation  is 
very  often  re-enforced  by  the  authority  of  other  persons, 
although  it  originates  in  the  authority  of  ourselves  as  law-givers 
or  judges  over  against  ourselves. 

The   sense   of   obligation  which  we  seek  to  explain  is  that 

which  occurs  in  its  most  elementary  form,  —  the 
tary  feeling  ^ ^rm  which  is  experienced  by  the  soul  within  itself, 
considered       without  reference  to   any  command   from  without. 

We  explain  it  thus :  we  notice  first,  that,  as  the 
feelings  of  self-approval  and  self-reproach  follow  the  right  or 


§  62.]  THE  MORAL  FEELINGS.  155 

wrong  voluntary  activity,  so  the  feeling  of  obligation  to  choose 
or  reject,  to  do  or  avoid,  precedes  such  activity.  As  self- 
approval  and  self-reproach  are  at  once  the  most  exquisite  of 
pleasures  or  pains,  whenever  and  as  soon  as  the  activity  as  yet 
not  decided  is  proposed  to  the  voluntary  by  the  reflecting  self 
for  its  election,  it  is  enforced  by  the  self-approval  or  self- 
reproach  which  is  known  will  certainly  follow.  As  these  emo- 
tions are  the  most  valued  and  the  most  dreaded,  they  constitute 
the  strongest  motives  by  which  a  man  can  be  bound  or  held  to 
right  activity ;  and,  as  they  are  the  most  disinterested  of  feel- 
ings, they  are  altogether  incapable  of  any  selfish  taint.  The 
sense  or  sentiment  of  obligation,  it  should  be  noticed,  is  limited 
to  a  choice  or  action  not  3'et  achieved,  when  thought  of  as  ideal 
and  future.  The  sense  of  obligation,  in  the  proper  use  of  the 
term,  always  imports  a  future  activity,  — an  activity  as  yet  not 
chosen  or  executed.  It  is  only  in  a  secondary  way  that  we  say 
of  the  actual  past,  " I  ought  to  have  done  it,"  or,  "I  did  what 
I  ought." 

Tlie  sense  or  sentiment  of  obligation,  as  men  ordinarily  ex- 
perience  and   interpret   it,  is  the  feeling  which   is 
occasioned  by  the  apprehended  favor  or  disfavor  of  wardsaper- 
our  fellow-men,  usually  occupying  the  place  of  natu- 
ral superiors  or  rulers.     With  this  feeling  may  be  more  or  less 
obscurely  blended  and  symbolized  our  own  self-approval  or  self- 
reproach.     But  not  a  few  theorists  who  undertake  to  analyze 
the  sentiment  resolve  the  whole  of  it  into  the  hope  or  fear  of 
the  complacency  or  displeasure  of  another  person,  and  construct 
their  entire  ethical  theory  upon  this  basis. 

We  have  already  emphasized  the  point  that  the  sentiment 
which  we  desire  to  detect  and  define  is  the  feeling  which  has  its 
source  and  root  within  the  individual  soul.  It  is  worth  noti- 
cing, that,  in  each  of  the  cases  supposed,  we  have  to  do  with 
some  person  who  is  the  ohliger.  In  the  first  case  the  person 
with  whom  we  are  confronted  ia  ou^*  Creator,  or  one  or  many  of 
our  feUQw-wen  p^pmis^ing  their  favo?,  or  threatening  its  loss ; 


156  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL   SCIENCE.  [§  62. 

thus  binding  and  holding  us  to  do  or  avoid  the  act  of  duty  or 
of  sin.  In  tJie  second  case  we  are  also  confronted  with  a 
person ;  myself,  as  a  lawgiver,  promising  self -approval,  or 
threatening  its  opposite,  —  the  brightest  of  all  conceivable  re- 
wards, and  the  bitterest  of  pains. 

Should  it  be  suggested,  that,  according  to  this  analysis,  the 
man  must  first  have  experienced  self- approbation  and  self- 
reproach  before  he  can  feel  their  force  as  obliging  or  binding 
motives,  it  might  be  replied,  that  this  can  only  apply  to  the  first 
activities  of  ethical  life,  but  not  to  any  experience  of  obligation 
that  falls  within  the  limits  of  remembered  experience.  It  is  of 
little  moment,  if,  in  our  first  experiences,  self-approval  and  self- 
reproach  should  be  these  rudimentary  moral  emotions,  which 
might  precede  the  matured  feelings  of  sanctioned  command. 
The  experiences  of  which  we  are  conscious  are  those  which  fol- 
low at  a  later  date,  after  consciousness  and  reflection  are  fully 
developed.  So  soon  as  man  is  fully  awake  to  a  complete  and 
distinct  consciousness  of  moral  good  or  evil,  self-approval  and 
self-reproach  must  ever  afterwards  be  regarded  as  the  brightest 
of  his  rewards,  and  the  darkest  and  most  dreaded  of  his  fears. 

That  the  feeling  of  obligation  thus  arising  should  be  unique 
The  feeling  should  not  Surprise  us.  First  of  all,  it  is  worthy  of 
is  unique.  noticc  that  the  recognition  of  any  force  as  acting 
under  law  within  our  own  being,  of  itself  invests  this  force  with 
a  special  and  resistless  authority.  We  cannot  but  respond  to  it 
with  respect  and  reverence.  It  is  not  ourselves  framing  a 
law  for  ourselves  arbitrarily  or  in  caprice,  but  ourselves  meet- 
ing a  law  imposed  upon  us  by  our  inmost  nature.  Any  force 
stronger  than  ourselves,  whether  it  acts  from  without,  like  the 
sun  or  the  wind,  or  wells  up  from  within  the  mysterious  springs 
of  our  inner  life,  awakens  our  respect.  The  recognition  of  an 
activity  as  one  for  which  our  nature  is  fitted,  involves  an  au- 
thority still  higher,  because  it  commends  itself  to  our  reverence 
for  rational  order.  It  is  not  our  caprice  that  imposes  this 
authority,  not  our  voluntary  will,  nor  any  single  impulse  or 


§63.]  THE  MORAL  FEELINGS.  157 

desire,  but  our  nature  as  a  whole,  in  the  mutual  adaptation  of  all 
its  impulses,  and  their  harmonious  working  with  the  forces  of 
the  universe.  It  is  not  a  mere  blind  force,  or  combination 
of  forces,  but  an  adjustment  that  is  rational  in  its  adaptation, 
and  working  for  the  highest  ends  known  or  conceivable  by  us.^ 
There  is  no  authority  more  majestic  than  that  of  self-conviction 
concerning  our  capacities  as  revealing  our  destined  functions, 
when  enforced  by  self- approbation  or  self-reproach.  If  the 
action  is  our  own,  and  the  law  is  self-imposed  by  the  discern- 
ment of  the  consenting  reason,  our  anticipated  self- approval  or 
self-reproach  obliges  or  binds  us,  as  nothing  else  can,  by  a 
triple  bond  to  voluntary  allegiance  to  duty. 

§  63.  We  have  said  already  that  the  feeling  of  obligation, 
as  men  ordinarily  experience  and  recognize  it,  is 
rarely  limited  to  man's  self-imposed  or  personal  toourfeUow- 
commands  or  prohibitions.  As  men  meet  one  an-  "**"' 
other  in  society,  so  soon  as  their  favor  and  dislike  are  known 
by  the  necessary  operations  of  human  nature  to  lie  in  wait  for 
the  right  and  wrong  purposes  and  actions  of  their  fellows,  this 
anticipated  favor  or  displeasure  usually  re-enforces  the  ele- 
mentary feeling  of  obligation  by  which  the  man  enforces  the 
law  of  duty  upon  himself. 

Most  men,  also,  in  some  form  and  to  some  extent,  extend 
their  thoughts  beyond  their  kind,  and  lift  them  above  \AtuA  up  to 
nature,  and  recognize  some  sort  of  a  "  tendency  ^®^* 
not  themselves  working  for  righteousness."  So  soon  as  they 
do  this,  and  recognize  the  law  of  duty  to  be  the  will  of  the 
Supreme,  the  feeling  of  obligation  is  at  once  re-enforced  by 
the  anticipated  favor  or  displeasure  of  some  power  or  person 
who  "  is  greater  than  our  hearts,  and  knoweth  all  things." 

1  "  Von  diesen  Pimkten  gelit  die  strenge,  unnachgiebige  Forderung  des 
sittlichen  aus,  jenes  kategorische  Soil,  das  an  das  besondere  und  an  den 
Theil  ergehend  von  einem  Willen  ansfliesst  wenn  man  anders  die  Quelle 
des  Soil  vom  bedingten  ins  unbedingte  verfolgt."  —  A.  Trendelenburg; 
Hist.  Beit}  age  zur  Fhilosophie,  Band  iii.,  vi.  (2),  pp.  201-203. 


158  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL   SCIENCE.  [§  64. 

§  64.  In  the  order  of  time,  the  human  mind  first  un  .nds 

Obligation       ^^  obligation  some  constraint  imposed  by  ihe  com- 

originaiiy       mand  of  another.     To  the  child  the  judgment,  "I 

respects  the  ,  ,  -     .       - 

claim  of  ought  to  do  or  refram  from  this  or  that,"  signifies, 

another,  j^y  parent  or  teacher  commands  me,  and  will  punish 
me  if  I  fail  or  offend :  the  magistrate,  or  the  community,  or 
God,  commands  or  forbids,  and  will  reward  or  punish.  In 
this  sense  it  is  eminently  true  that  obligation  supposes  an 
obliger,  and  signifies  "a  violent  motive  resulting  from  the  com- 
mand of  another."  Such  words  as  ''to  owe,"  ''to  be  bound," 
and  their  equivalents,  are  largely  derived  from  relations  be- 
tween man  and  man,  that  involve  force  and  command  on  the 
one  side,  and  fear  and  compulsion  on  the  other.  If  we  collate 
in  the  English,  the  French,  or  the  German  languages  the 
prominent  words  that  express  or  imply  the  relation  of  obliga- 
tion, we  shall  find  that  they  were  all  originally  the  relations  of 
man  to  man,  as  of  child  or  servant,  or  debtor  or  subject. 

These  external  relations  furnish  the  vocabulary  for  the  in- 
ternal authority  of  man  over  himself,  but  do  not  for 
symbolizes       ^hat  rcason  either  originate  or  explain  the  relation 
and  suggests    itself,  nor  the  ground  of  it,  nor  even  the  history  of 

the  Internal. 

its  progressive  and  complete  development  to  the 
analytic  consciousness.  While  in  time  our  distinct  knowledge 
of  the  external  precedes  that  of  the  internal,  the  internal  is 
not  created  out  of  the  first,  though  it  is  suggested  by  it,  and 
even  expressed  in  terms  taken  from  it.  Very  soon  the  two  are 
blended  together  ;  and  the  one  practically  supplements  the  other, 
which  it  symbolizes  and  enforces  to  the  advantage  and  strength- 
ening of  both.  It  is  when  one  contradicts  and  resists  the 
other  that  the  tragedies  of  life  within  and  without  invariably 
follow.  A  man  owes  his  debts  none  the  less  morally  because 
the  law  adds  its  motives  of  a  writ  and  a  judgment  to  those  of 
the  conscience.  We  pay  our  debts  because  we  owe  them,  in  the 
sense  of  being  forced  by  fear  of  the  officer,  and  also  from  a 
conscience  before  God.     But  when  the  dues  which   the   law 


§  64.1  ^^^  MORAL  FEELINGS.  159 

exacts,  or  public  sentiment  enforces,  are  inconsistent  with  the 
duties  which  the  conscience  enjoins,  then  it  is  that  conflicts  and 
scruples,  and  the  tragedies  of  the  heart  and  of  life,  ensue. 

The  feeling  of  obligation  has  long  attracted  the  attention  of 
theoretic  moralists,  and  been  supposed  to  be  invested   „ 

^  ^  Supposed 

with  a  special  myster3\     This  has  been  especially  mystery  of 
true  since  Kant  made  the  categorical  imperative  so  ^^^'^^s***®'** 
emphatic  and  distinctive  an  element  in  all  ethical  experiences, 
and  excluded  it  from  all  relationship  to  the  sensibility.     Kant 
opposes  the  categorical  to  the   hypothetical  imperative,  over- 
looking  the   fact   that   to   his   own   categorical  imperative  he 
concedes  a  subtle  hypothetical  condition  by  enfor- 
cing  the  authority  of  its  commands  by  their  acknowl-  categorical 
edged  fitness  to  become  general  laws.     Kant,  as  is    ™p<^^**^^®' 
well  known,  not  only  asserted  for  this  imperative  the  claim  of 
being  the  ethical  feature  by  eminence,  but  he  invested  it  with 
authority  to  enforce  not  only  our  duty,  but  our  faith  in  God,  as 
the  condition  of  moral  order,  and  the  rewarder  of  virtue  with 
happiness.     A  large  class  of  moralists,  on  the  other  hand,  have 
assumed  that  obligation  involves  the  existence  of  two  persons, 
related  as  ruler  and  subject  by  natural  or  conventional  ties,  and 
have  insisted  that  obligation  implies  command  on  the  one  side, 
and  subjection  on  the  other.     Thus  Warburton  asserts,  "Obli- 
gation  supposes   an  obliger,  different  and  distinct  warburton's 
from  the  person  obliged;  "  and  Paley,  "A  man  is  raying, 
obliged  when  he  is  urged  by  a  violent  motive  resulting  from  the 
command  of  another,"  which  he  expands  in  his  definition  of 
virtue  as  "  the  doing  good  to  mankind  in  obedience  to  the  will 
of  God,  and  for  the  sake  of  everlasting   happiness."     Both 
these  writers  find  no  difficulty  in  explaining  the  term  on  that 
theory  of  morals  which  makes  the  positive  command  of  God  an 
essential  condition  of  the  authority  of  duty.     In  jurisprudence 
obligation  is  often  derived  wholly  from  the  commands  Theory  of 
of  positive  law  (cf .  Austin)  .     In  the  theory  of  this  *^**  treatise, 
work  the  personal  and  authoritative  element  and  the  related 


160  ELEMENTS  OF  MOEAL   SCIENCE.  [§  65. 

emotions  are  fully  provided  for  by  the  recognition  of  that  pe- 
culiarity in  man's  nature  by  which  he  is  capable  of  being  a  law 
to  himself;  i.e.,  in  virtue  of  the  voluntary  and  self-conscious 
endowments  of  his  being.  Kant  has  occasionally  recognized 
and  eloquently  asserted  the  truth  that  moral  necessity  is  the 
superior  will  of  man  commanding  his  inferior  will.  Paul  Janet 
writes  thus :  — 

*' Assuming  all  these  premises,  I  conclude,  that,  in  my  opin- 
Janet's  i^n,  the  man  cannot  thus  conceive  his  own  ideal 

exposition,  essence  without  wishing  to  realize  this  essence  so 
far  as  it  is  possible.  Moral  necessity  is,  as  Kant  perceived, 
only  the  superior  will  of  the  man,  laying  commands  on  his 
inferior  will.  Man  cannot  wish  to  be  any  thing  but  a  true  man, 
a  complete  man  ;  that  is,  to  be  actually  what  he  is  virtually. 
This  will  of  the  reason  finds  itself  in  conflict  with  the  sensitive 
will.  The  superior  will,  so  far  as  it  imposes  authority  upon  the 
inferior  will,  is  called  obligation.'' —  Tlie  Tlieory  of  Morals,  book 
ii.  chap.  i.  §  3,  New  York,  1883. 

§  65.  Dr.  Thomas  Brown  (Edinburgh,  1778-1820)  gives  the  following 
analysis  of  the  feeling  and  judgment  of  obligation  :  — 

"  Persons  acting  in  a  certain  manner  excite  in  us  a  feeling  of  approval: 
persons  acting  in  a  manner  opposite  to  this  cannot  be  con- 
Theory  or  sidered  by  us  without  an  emotion,  perhaps  as  vivid  or  more 
Brown.  vivid,  of  the  opposite  kind.  Why  does  it  seem  to  us  virtue 
to  act  in  this  way  ?  Why  does  he  seem  to  us  to  have  merit, 
or,  in  other  words,  to  be  worthy  of  approbation,  who  has  acted  in  this 
way  ?  The  only  answer  which  can  be  given  to  these  questions  is  the  same 
to  all:  that  it  is  impossible  for  us  to  consider  the  action  without  feeling, 
that,  by  acting  in  this  way,  we  should  look  upon  ourselves,  and  others 
would  look  upon  us,  with  abhorrence,  or  at  least  with  disapprobation  " 
{Lectures  on  the  Philosophy  of  the  Human  Mind,  lect.  73).  *'  To  feel  this  char- 
acter of  approvableness  in  an  action  which  we  have  not  yet  perfoi'med,  and  are 
only  meditating  in  the  future,  is  to  feel  the  moral  obligation  or  moral  induce- 
ment to  perform  it.  When  we  think  of  an  action  in  the  moment  of  voli- 
tion, we  term  the  voluntary  performance  of  it  'virtue: '  when  we  think  of 
the  action  as  already  performed,  we  denominate  it  'merit'  "  (lect.  81). 

These  solitary  passages  are  the  more  interesting  and  significant,  as 
occurring  in  a  writer  whose  tendency  is  to  resolve  all  the  phenomena  of 
the  soul  into  emotions,  who  makes  little  or  nothing  of  the  will,  and  does 


§  65.]  THEOBIES  OF  THE  FEELING,  ETC.  161 

only  scant  justice  to  the  personality  and  self-consciousness  of  man;  all  of 
which  are  vital  to  any  satisfactory  theory  of  either  the  sentiment  or  judg- 
ment of  obligation. 

i/uicAeson  proposes  and  answers  the  question  as  follows:  "If  any  ask, 
*  Can  we  have  any  sense  of  obligation  abstracting  from  the 

laws  of  a  superior  ? '  we  must  answer  according  to  the  various    . "     .*^""  " 

doctrine. 
senses  of  the  word  *  obligation.'  If  by  obligation  we  under- 
stand a  determination,  without  regard  to  our  own  interest,  to  approve  the 
actions  and  to  perform  them,  which  determination  shall  also  make  lis  dis- 
pleased with  ourselves,  and  uneasy  upon  having  acted  contrary  to  it,  in  this 
meaning  of  the  word  '  obligation '  there  is  naturally  an  obligation  upon 
all  men  to  benevolence."  —  Inquiry,  pp.  26G,  267. 

He  recognizes  the  opinion,  current  in  his  time,  that  obligation  implies 
an  obliger,  thus:  "When  any  sanctions  co-operate  with  our  moral  sense 
in  exciting  us  to  actions  which  we  count  morally  good,  we  say  we  are 
obliged;  but  when  sanctions  of  rewards  or  punishments  oppose  our  moral 
sense,  then  we  say  we  are  bribed  or  constrained."  —  p.  276. 

Warhurton,  who  was  conspicuous  for  resolving  all  obligation  into  the 
command  of  God,  —  his  pithy  statement  being  "'Obligation  supposes  an 
obliger," — thus  writes  to  John  Brown,  M.D.,  the  author  of  "Essays  on 
the  Characteristics: "  — 

"  If  you  use  *  obligation '  in  the  sense  of  motive,  then  I  apprehend  Shaftes- 
biiry,  Clarke,  and  Wollaston  may  say  you  differ,  not  from  them, 
but  in  the  use  of  a  different  term,  which  comes  to  the  same    Warbnrton's 
thing.    They  call  virtue  6ea2/«?7r/Z,^f,  and  fn/e,  for  the  reason    cJ^^J^T  "** 
that  you  call  it  beneficial;  namely,  because  it  produces  hap-   cjarke  etc' 
piness:  therefore,  when  they  say  the  beauty,  the  fitness,  the 
truth,  of  virtue  is  the  motive  for  practising  it,  they  say  the  very  thing  you 
do,  as  referring  to  the  happiness  of  which  virtue  is  productive,  etc. 

"If,  on  the  other  hand,  by  motive. you  had  meant,  as  understood  by 
you,  real  obligation,  you  must  still  be  in  the  wrong,  if  (as  you  hold) 
Shaftesbury,  Clarke,  and  Wollaston  be  so;  because,  like  them,  you  make 
real  obligation  to  arise,  as  they  do,  from  the  nature  of  virtue,  and  not,  as 
their  real  adversaries  do,  from  the  will  of  a  superior:  for  their  real  adver- 
saries do  not  say  they  are  wrong  in  making  it  arise  from  this  or  that  prop- 
erty of  virtue,  —  such  as  its  beauty,  its  fitness,  or  its  truth, —but  in  their 
making  it  arise  from  an  abstract  idea  at  all,  or,  indeed,  from  any  thing  but 
personality,  and  the  will  of  another,  different  and  distinct  from  the  person 
obliged"  {vide  Warburton's  Letters,  pp.  57,  58).  Of  this  we  say,  that 
Warburton  is  right  in  so  far  as  he  makes  personality  to  be  essential  to  obli- 
gation, but  not  necessarily  the  personality  of  "another,  different  and  dis- 
tinct from  the  person  obliged;  "  inasmuch  as  the  very  essence  and  energy 
of  the  feeling  depend  on  the  fact  that  the  two  relations  coincide  in  one  and 
the  same  person.    As  to  the  fact  whether  the  person  obliging  and  the  per- 


162  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL   SCIENCE.  [§  65. 

son  obliged  can  be  the  same,  we  have  only  to  say,  that,  if  this  is  impossible, 
self-consciousness  and  self-control  are  also  impossible.  And  yet  somehow 
it  must  be  true,  — 

"  that  unless  above  himself  he  can 
Erect  himself,  how  poor  a  thing  is  man !  " 

The  influence  of  Kant  upon  the  ethical  thought  of  modern  times  has  in 

no  one  particular  been  so  conspicuous  as  in  his  doctrine  of 
Different  in-  moral  obligation,  or  the  categorical  imperative,  which  he 
of  Kant  interprets  in  a  sense  which  was  original  to  himself,  with 

which  he  connected  a  peculiar  psychological  theory,  and  of 
which  he  made  a  special  philosophical  application.  Not  a  few  writers,  as 
has  already  been  noticed,  have  accepted  his  general  statement,  who  did  not 
fully  adopt  the  psychological  or  philosophical  theory  in  which  it  held  a 
unique  and  well-filled  place.  It  was  mainly  through  the  influence  of 
Coleridge  that  the  theory  and  its  application  passed  into  very  current 
favor  with  very  many  English  and  American  writers,  who  have  accepted  it 
as  the  eloquently  phrased  doctrine  of  Clarke,  Price,  and  Reid,  without  scru- 
tinizing its  logical  consistency,  or  accepting  its  psychological  or  theological 
accompaniments.  The  simple  statement  that  the  categorical  imperative 
is  not  only  invested  with  the  prerogative  of  simple  authority,  but  that  it 
commands  us  to  believe  in  a  personal  and  perfect  God,  has  been  accepted 
by  very  many  as  the  corner-stone  of  ethical  and  theistic  faith.  It  deserves 
careful  notice,  however,  that  the  doctrine  of  Kant  is  not  that  the  sense  of 
obligation  is  derived  from  the  personal  authority  of  God  as  sanctioning  the 
law  of  duty,  but  that  the  command  of  duty  requires  us  to  believe  in  God  in 
order  that  he  may  enforce  this  law  by  reward  and  punishment.  "We  do 
not  first  believe  in  God,  and  subsequently  accept  the  obligation  of  duty 
from  the  command  of  God;  but  we  find  the  moral  law  commanding  us  to 
believe  in  him  axiomatically.  The  truth  for  which  we  contend  is,  that  the 
contemplation  of  right  action  as  the  supreme  end  of  our  being  leads  us, 
in  scientific  thought  and  faith,  to  a  God  who  is  personal  and  morally  good ; 
but  it  does  not  make  moral  obligation  to  proceed  from  the  simple  will  or 
command  of  God,  for  the  obligation  would  exist  were  there  no  God. 

For  this  reason,  such  language  as  the  following,  from  J.  A.  Froude,  is 

liable  to  misinterpretation,  if  it  is  not  palpably  erroneous: 
'     **  So  far  as  we  know,  morality  rests  upon  the  sense  of  obliga- 
tion; and  obligation  has  no  meaning  except  as  implying  a  divine  command, 
without  which  it  would  cease  to  be."  —  Life  of  John  Bunyan,  chap.  ix. 
Herbert  Spencer,  in  entire  consistency  with  his  theory,  analyzes  moral 

obligation  into  two  elements,  —  the  element  of   atithority, 
er  ert  which  he  interprets  as  the  known  excellence  of  the  good 

impulse  or  act;  and  the  element  of  coerciveness,  which  he 
derives  from  the  several  forms  of  social  restraint  to  which  man  is  subject, 
—  the  political,  religious,  and  social  (cf .  Locke's  Three  Laws,  §  41).     The 


§  66.]  THEOBIES  OF  THE  FEELING,   ETC.  163 

second  of  these  elements,  in  the  order  of  evolution,  will  fade  away;  i.e., 
"  the  sense  of  duty  or  moral  obligation  is  transitory,  and  will 
be  diminished  as  fast  as  moralization  increases "  {Data  of  Kant's  re- 
Ethics,  §  46).    Kant  asserts  the  same  of  his  categorical  im-   ^ 
perative,  but  for  a  different  reason:  viz.,  that  the  sensibilities 
or  passions  will  eventually  cease  to  struggle  with  the  categorical  impera- 
tive; and  holiness,  or  a  state  of  loving  consent,  shall  at  last  completely 
displace  the  resisting  and  struggling  sensibility.    It  is  worthy  of  notice, 
that  neither  Kant  nor  Spencer  finds  any  place  for  personality,  and  scarcely 
for  freedom,  in  their  psychological  theory;  although  Kant's  provides  for  it 
as  an  ethical  necessity.    It  is  not  surprising  that  the  ethical  theory  of  both 
fails  satisfactorily  to  explain  the  feeling  of  obligation.    James  Martineau,  in 
a  brief  essay  (London,  1881,  On  the  Relation  betioeen  Ethics  and 
Religion),  surprises  us  by  insisting  that  no  proper  ethics  can 
be  constructed  which  do  not  imply  God  as  necessarily  and 
naturally  known  to  the  soul,  and  enforcing  the  law  of  duty  as  his  personal 
will;  which  is  the  exact  converse  of  the  doctrine  of  Kant,  though  obviously 
inspired  by  Kant's  analysis  of  obligation. 

§  Q&.   (3)  A  third  class  of  emotions  are  those  of  merit  or 

demerit,  or  ofqoocl  and  ill  desert.     These,  for  similar   ,„,  „ 

'         -^  ^  '  (3)  Sense  of 

reasons,  are,  with  the  sense  of  obligation,  very  fre-  merit  and 
quently  conceived  of  as  judgments,  —  shaded  off,  *'"*^"  * 
perhaps,  into  the  emotions  which  attend  them.  A  moment's 
reflection  will  convince  any  one  that  they  suppose  and  imply  the 
existence  of  a  community  of  moral  beings.  It  is  of  his  fellow- 
men  or  his  Creator  that  a  man  is  said  and  conceded  to  deserve 
good  or  evil :  it  is  only  in  a  remote  and  secondary  way  that  he 
can  be  said  to  deserve  good  or  evil  of  himself.  It  being  im- 
plied that  men  live  in  a  community,  if  A  feels  or  acts  rightly  or 
wrongly,  we  think  and  say,  A  deserves  good  or  evil  from 
B^  C,  i),  and  all  the  rest.  We  do  not  say  we  believe  that 
B,  C,  2>,  and  all  the  rest,  will,  in  fact,  show  love  and  ^^^ 
complacency  to  A  when  he  acts  rightly,  or  dislike  ciety,— acom- 
when  he  acts  wrongly  ;  but  we  do  believe  and  say,  ^  ®^®™^  ^®"* 
that,  if  they  do  this  in  fact,  they  will  approve  their  own  acts, 
and,  if  they  do  the  opposite,  they  will  disapprove  them.  We 
think  and  say  this  with  confidence,  because  we  believe  that  all 
men  are  alike  in  their  moral  nature.     The  merit  or  demerit  of 


164  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL   SCIENCE.  [§  66. 

purposes  and  actions. is  their  capacity  to  elicit  or  command  from 
others  such  feelings  of  approval  or  disapproval  as  the  bestowers 
themselves  shall  approve  or  disapprove.  As  is  true  of  self- 
approbation  and  its  converse  self-reproach,  as  also  of  obliga- 
tion to  do  or  avoid,  so  is  it  of  merit  and  demerit:  all  are 
afRrmable  of  the  actions  and  feelings  or  purposes,  —  first  of 
the  feelings  or  purposes,  and  then  of  the  actions  which  are 
their  expression  or  effects.  Whatever  action  or  choice  would 
occasion  these  feelings  before  or  after  it  was  achieved,  we  say 
was  obligatory  to  do  or  to  avoid,  was  meritorious  or  demeritori- 
ous ;  i.e.,  was  well  or  ill  deserving.  This  transfer  from  inward 
feeling  to  outward  act  is  by  a  common  figure  of  language. 


§67.]  OBJECTIONS,  REPLIES,  ETC.  165 


CHAPTER  X. 

OBJECTIONS,    REPLIES,   AND   COUNTER-OBJECTIONS. 

§  67.  To  the  analysis  which  has  been  given  of  the  processes 
by  which  our  moral  conceptions   are   gained,  with'  objections  to 
their  attendant  emotions,  the   following   objections  o"''t^«o»"y- 
are  urged :  — 

(1)  These  processes  suppose  acts  of  reflection  and  compari- 
son of  which  we  are  not  conscious  in  every,  perhaps 

-^ '  ^  ^      (1)  The  pro- 

not  in  any,  case  when  we  discern  these  relations,   cesses  re- 
and  experience  these  emotions.  quired  sup- 

^  pose  impossi- 

To  this  we  reply,  that  the  theory  does  not  require  bie  acts  of 
us  to  hold  that  in  every  instance,  or  in  the  majority 
of   instances,  when  we   think   ethical   conceptions,  or  employ 
ethical  terms,  we  must  go  through  these  successive  steps,  and 
discern  these  several  relations,  but  only  that  when  their  import  is 
first  discerned,  or  subsequently  analyzed  into  its  elements,  they 
must  involve  these  processes  and  products.     This  is  true  of  the 
majority  of  the  complex  concepts  which  we  constantly  employ, 
of   the  most  and   the   least  familiar  alike.     When  Reflection 
we   have   once   mastered   their  content,  we   rarely  needed  to 

gain,  but  not 

dwell  upon  the  elements.     It  often  happens  that  a  to  apply 
single  relation  of  a  very  complicated  concept  is  all  ^*^*'"** 
that  we  need  to  recognize  for  its  intelligent  application.     But 


166  ELEMENTS  OF  MOBAL   SCIENCE.  [§  67. 

when  we  seek  to  define  such  a  concept,  or  inquire  whether  it  is 
simple  or  complex,  and  when  we  inquire  how  it  originated,  or 
of  what  elements  it  consists,  it  presents  itself  in  new  aspects, 
and  suggests  other  inquiries. 

We  perform  many  a  complicated  process  of  analysis,  or  unite 
several  elements  by  elaborate  synthesis,  without  being  aware 
that  we  do  either.  Most  of  the  processes  involved  in  the 
acquired  perceptions,  especially  of  sight  or  hearing,  when  famil- 
iar, are  achieved  with  a  rapidity  which  forbids  that  they  should 
be  followed  by  the  analytic  or  reflective  consciousness.  Few  of 
these  processes  can  be  recalled  by  the  memory.  We  see  and 
hear,  as  by  insight  or  intuition,  the  form,  size,  and  distance,  with 
the  properties  which  are  appropriate  to  the  other  senses.  We  do 
not  notice,  we  do  not  half  believe,  that  we  compare  and  judge 
and  interpret  in  order  to  determine  what  is  indicated ;  but  we 
seem  to  ourselves  to  hear,  perceive,  or  see  the  object  directly 
as  a  whole,  without  analysis  or  definition.  And  yet  we  know, 
that,  without  many  processes  of  judgment  and  interpretation, 
we  could  not  perform  the  acts,  nor  gain  the  knowledge,  nor 
experience  the  emotions,  which  we  are  certain  we  gain  and 
feel. 

(2)  It  is  objected  again,  that  this  theory  requires  that  moral 

relations  and  emotions  should  be  experienced  at  an 

that  moral      incredibly  early  age.     To  this  we  reply,  that  even 

distinctions     jn  infancy  we  are  fully  equal  to  many  achievements 

should  be  -^  -^      ^  , 

originated  of  thought  and  feeling  which  are  no  less  surprising 
at  too  early      ^^g^^  thosc  required  by  our  theory.     Indeed,  so  soon 

an  age. 

as  the  human  being  awakes  to  distinct  and  remem- 

berable  consciousness,  he  finds  himself  in  possession  of  a  large 
stock  of  familiar  conceptions  and  emotions  and  habits,  which  he 
knows  must  have  been  accumulated  in  what  seems  to  him  to 
have  been  the  dim  and  early  dawn  of  his  inner  life.  It  should 
also  be  remembered,  that,  whatever  be  our  theory,  moral  rela- 
tions, when  first  discovered,  are  not  apprehended  in  the  abstract 


§67.]  OBJECTIONS,  BEPLIES,  ETC.  167 

but  in  the  concrete  form,  and  even  then  not  as  exemplified  in 
the  feelings  and  actions  of  adults,  but  of  infants  ;  not  as  applied 
to  the  imposing  and  vague  abstractions  of  advanced  reflection, 
but  as  illustrated  in  the  trivial  yet  definite  claims  and  responses 
of  childhood. 

Even  the  axioms  of  geometry  are  not  self-evident  to  childhood 
in  the  generalized  phraseology  of  the  schools  ;  and  yet  they  are 
as  obvious  to  the  child  as  to  the  man,  when  applied  to  the 
quanta  which  the  Child  manipulates.  The  same  is  eminently 
true  of  the  relations  of  morality  in  the  early  dawn  of  conscious 
activity. 

Our  theory  does  not  require  the  enlarged  conceptions  and  the  complex 

emotions  of  reflective  manhood,  but  only  such  as  are  possible    „ 

^     .    ,  ,  ,  .  ,  Requires  only 

to  infancy,  and  upon  the  materials  that  are  within  the  in-    gach  ^^1^. 

fant's  experience,  and  are  familiar  to  an  infant's  observation,  tions  as  an 
Let  there  be  only  two  conflicting  desires  struggling  for  the  *»fant  can 
mastery,  each  known  to  the  inward  eye  as  naturally  better  "'^**®''* 
or  worse,  one  chosen,  the  other  rejected  when  within  its  reach,  and  the 
child  has  all  that  it  needs  to  think  of  in  order  to  discern  the  relations  of 
moral  good  and  evil,  and  to  experience  the  attendant  emotions  of  self- 
approval  and  obligation  and  merit.  The  process  of  discernment  is  per- 
formed necessarily  and  instantaneously.  The  child  has  only  to  reflect, 
and  reflection  only  to  be  energetic  and  comparative,  and  in  an  instant 
consciousness  springs  into  the  activity  of  conscience  ;  the  conscience  giv- 
ing an  end,  a  standard,  a  self-judgment,  and  self-approval  or  self-reproach. 
What  an  instant  before  was  a  sportive  arena  has  suddenly  become  a  solemn 
tribunal,  which  gives  a  more  elevated  import  and  a  more  serious  aspect  to 
all  the  future  activities  of  human  life  and  experience.  The  eyes  are 
opened  as  by  magic  to  a  universe  of  new  relations:  the  knowledge  of  good 
and  evil  is  attained  as  in  an  instant. 

It  should  also  be  remembered,  that  every  theory  which  does  not  explain 
moral  concepts  by  relations  from  without,  but  derives  them  from  within, 
requires  these  very  processes  of  reflection  to  apply,  which  this  theory  re- 
quires to  originate,  moral  law  and  moral  emotions.  Those  who  begin  with 
rational  intuitions,  or  the  categorical  imperative,  or  the  responses  of  the 
moral  sense,  require  a  measure  of  that  reflective  comparison  in  order  to 
apply  the  standard  or  law  which  this  theory  demands  for  its  origination. 
Every  ethical  theory  seems,  at  first  thought,  beyond  the  reach  of  an  infant's 
power  of  inward  reflection.  It  follows,  that  an  objection  which  applies 
equally  to  all  can  be  fatal  to  no  one. 


168  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL   SCIENCE.  [§  67. 

(3)  It  is  objected  still  further,  that  the  theory,  in  its  final 
analysis,  resolves  morality  into  selfish  relations  and 
moral  into  affections.^  To  this  we  reply,  first  of  all,  it  does  not 
selfish  reia-  of  necessity  resolve  morality  into  any  relations  to 
good  or  happiness  which  are  sensitive  as  distin- 
guished from  the  voluntary.  There  are  those  who  hold  that 
moral  excellence  is  defined  as  the  choice  of  the  highest  natural 
good,  who  seem  to  contend  that  there  is  a  natural  good  which 
in  itself  gives  no  happiness,  or  at  least  that  this  natural  happi- 
ness should  not  be  known  to  the  subject  of  it. 

Leaving  this  subtile  refinement,  and  conceding  that  the  high- 
est natural  good  in  man  or  in  any  sensitive  being  must  involve 
sensitive  satisfaction,  it  does  not  follow  that  the  theory  which 
defines  moral  excellence  as  the  choice  of  those  objects  which 
give  the  highest  sensitive  good  is  a  selfish  theory.  Selfishness, 
it  should  always  be  remembered,  is  a  voluntary  preference  of 
private  and  separate  good  to  the  good  of  others.  It  can  have 
no  possible  application  to  the  natural  exercise  of  a  natural  sen- 
sibility, whether  it  be  high  or  low,  self-terminating  or  altruistic. 
But  selfishness  is  excluded  by  the  very  fundamental  assumption 
of  the  theory  that  man  is  capable  of  disinterested  delight  in 
the  good  of  others,  and  that  this  is  a  nobler  happiness  than  any 
form  of  individual  or  separate  gratification.  But  it  is  urged,  if 
we  make  this  happiness  which  is  incident  to  natural  love  to  be 
a  motive  to  voluntary  love  by  thinking  of  it,  or  apprehending 
its  presence,  we  exclude  the  disinterestedness  of  our  loving, 
and  of  course  we  destroy  its  virtuousness.  To  this  we  reply, 
that  it  is  true,  that  in  order  to  love,  and  so  far  as  we  love, 
whether  by  a  natural  or  a  voluntary  affection,  we  must  think  of 
the  object  which  is  loved,  and  often  be  so  absorbed  in  this 
object  as  to  fail  to  notice  the  blessedness  of  loving.     Whether 

1  See  A.  TBENDELENBURa,  Der  Widerstreit  zicischen  Kant  und  Aristoteles 
in  der  Ethik;  (1)  Die  Lust  und  das  ethische  Princip.  Hist.  Deitrdge,  etc.,  3ter 
Band,  vi.;  (2)  also  H.  Lotze,  Der  Mikrokosmus,  5tes  Buch,  5tes  Kapitel ; 
Das  Gewissen  und  die  Sitllichkeit. 


§67.]  OBJECTIONS,  BEPLIES,  ETC.  169 

the  love  is  an  affection  which  we  cannot  repress,  or  which  we 
voluntarily  allow,  it  can  exist  only  so  far  and  so  long  as  the 
mind  is  moved  by  the  object  loved,  i.e.,  so  long  as  the  object  is 
loved  for  its  own  sake.  Whenever  we  love,  or  howsoever  we 
love,  we  love  the  object,  not  the  happiness  or  satisfaction  which 
loving  involves.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  when  the  man  esti- 
mates the  quality  of  his  love,  whether  it  is  natural  ,p^g  position 
or  voluntary,  he  is  no  longer  an  actor,  going  out  o^ » J«<J?e 

1^1.        .11,  .,  differs  from 

from  himself  objectively,  but  has  become  a  judge,  that  of  an 
looking  in  upon  himself  subjectively  ;  and  he  cannot  *^*®'* 
avoid  judging  each  affection  as  to  the  quality  of  the  satisfaction 
which  it  gives.  Judging  it  thus,  he  cannot  but  measure  it  by 
the  capacities  of  subjective  or  sensitive  good  which  his  nature 
provides.  Whether  or  not  this  estimate  is  a  moral  estimate,  it 
is  not  inconsistent  with  the  unselfishness  of  a  voluntary  affec- 
tion, so  long  as  the  voluntary  act  of  loving  must  be  disinterested 
in  order  to  be  love  at  all. 

These  two  movements  or  elements  of  our  nature  —  the  out- 
ward or  objective,  and  the  reflex  or  subjective  —  must  go 
together.  They  cannot  be  antagonistic  as  impelling  or  direct- 
ing forces.  They  cannot  be  mutually  exclusive.  The  attempt 
to  show  that  the  moral  impulse  and  the  desire  of  happiness  are 
incompatible,  or  have  no  possible  relations,  has  invariably  failed 
in  theory  and  practice. 

We  say  truly  of  the  impulses  of  voluntary  T)enevolence,  and  indeed 
of  every  impulse  which  is  merely  emotional  or  natural,  that 
the  good  of  another  must  fill  and  control  the  thoughts,  and    i,e„evolence 
move  the  sensibility.    But  it  is  also  true,  that  while  a  man  is    -when  exer- 
loving  his  friend,  or  pitying  a  sufferer,  he  cannot  avoid  being    cised  and 
conscious  that  his  loving  or  pitying  experience  opens  to  him    estimated,  is 
the  highest  and  noblest  satisfaction  of  which  his  nature  is    .  , 
capable.    As  this  consciousness  deepens  into  reflection,  it 
enables  him  to  judge  of  the  quality  of  every  affection  and  impulse.    It  is 
most  true,  that,  when  we  love  our  neighbor,  it  is  our  neighbor  and  not  our- 
selves whom  we  love ;  but,  when  we  judge  whether  it  is  better  to  love  or  to 
hate  him,  we  must  know  which  impulse  of  our  own  is  the  most  satisfying 
good,  both  in  quality  and  in  degree.    This  knowledge  we  cannot  hide  from 


170  ELEMENTS  OF  MOBAL  SCIENCE.  [§  67. 

our  thoughts  when  we  are  impelled  to  choose  between  our  neighbor  or 
ourselves,  as  the  objects  of  voluntary  affection.  The  special  desire  which 
this  knowledge  awakens  in  our  sensibility  is  in  no  sense  selfish ;  for  this 
element  is  a  response  that  is  common  to  all  choices  and  all  impulses,  the 
benevolent  and  the  selfish  alike.  The  object  which  secures  the  highest 
good  is  chosen /or  its  own  sake,  in  the  most  eminent  sense  which  is  possible 
(§  10).  The  intrinsic  worth  of  the  object  as  truly  sways  the  soul  according 
to  this  analysis  as  according  to  any  other.  The  only  question  of  any  pos- 
sible importance  is  whether  natural  good  is  the  foundation  of  moral  good- 
ness as  explained  by  our  analysis.  If  this  is  answered  in  the  affirmative, 
the  relation  of  natural  good  to  happiness  may  be  left  open  as  a  question 
of  psychological  dissection  and  speculative  definition,  in  which  refined 
scholastics  and  lofty  sentimentalists  may  alternately  find  vexation  and 
delight. 

(4)  It  may  be  urged  still  further,  that  this  theory  does  not 
a)  Does  not  ^^P^^i^  ^he  sense  of  obligation.  The  soul's  re- 
expiain  sense  spouse  to  obligation,  it  is  urged,  in  its  nature  is  not 

of  obligation.  ,.  ,  ,      .  .  ^    , 

an  emotion ;  and  no  analysis  or  comparison  can  nnd 
relationship  between  the  two.  To  Kant,  it  will  be  said,  belongs 
the  especial  honor  of  emphasizing  respect  for  obligation  as  the 
distinctive  element  by  which  moral  actions  are  elevated  above 
any  possible  aflfinity  with  happiness.  And  yet,  as  we  have 
already  observed,  Kant  makes  it  an  axiom  in  ethics  that  the 
servant  of  duty  ought  to  be  made  happy.  He  even  makes  this 
axiom  the  corner-stone  of  his  faith  in  a  personal  God,  whom  it 
obliges  man  to  believe,  in  order  that  the  strife  between  happiness 
and  virtue  may  be  adjusted.  It  is  true,  obligation  as  a  feeling 
and  a  relation  is  peculiar  and  by  itself ;  but  this  by  no  means 
proves  that  obligation,  in  the  last  analysis,  is  not  resolved  into 
a  feeling.  It  is  conceded  that  the  emotion  must  be  peculiar, 
while  yet  it  is  contended  that  this  peculiar  emotion  arises  from 
the  fact  that  it  only  is  felt  when  man  is  law-giver,  judge,  and 
executioner  to  himself.  That  obligation  is  akin  to  hope  and 
fear  is  too  evident  to  need  enforcement.  It  is  because  the  emo- 
tion is  unique  that  men  appeal  to  what  they  call  the  sense  of 
obligation  with  the  utmost  confidence,  and  that  obligation  carries 
with  it  supreme   authority.     Indeed,  it  cannot  be  otherwise; 


§68.]       .  OBJECTIONS,  REPLIES,  ETC.  171 

inasmuch  as  in  the  experience  of  it  man  deals  directly  with 
himself,  and  is  at  once  the  inflicter  and  sufferer,  the  rewarder 
and  the  recipient.  Its  conditions  being  unique,  the  emotion  and 
experience  ought  also  to  be  unique. 

Were  any  additional  evidence  required,  it  would  be  found  in 
the  close  affinity  between  the  response  to  the  law  imposed 
within,  and  the  law  when  re-enforced  from  without,  —  in  the 
command  uttered  by  the  magistrate  or  the  Supreme,  and  the 
command  imposed  by  the  inner  law-giver,  the  man  himself.  It 
is  not  denied  that  in  the  one  case  the  response  is  a  response  of 
sensibility,  and  it  ought  not  to  be  denied  that  it  may  be  so  in 
the  other. 

(5)  An  objection  migb*  be  urged  against  the  use  made  in  the  foregoing 

analysis   of   the  relation  of   design   or  purpose,  that   this 

knowledge  supposes  an  actual  trial  of  the  excellence  of  vir-    (^)  Supposes 

3.11  diCtiiifll 
tue  as  the  ground  of  imposing  or  accepting  it  as  the  law  of       .  .    _  -|„]|*' 

our  being.    This,  it  may  be  urged,  would  suppose  a  pre-   ^nd  wrong. 

vious  knowledge  of  the  moral  law,  which  would  require  a 

previous  knowledge  of  moral  relations;  and  this  would  require  us  to  fall 

back  on  the  categorical  imperative,  or  the  moral  sense.    Trendelenburg 

(Hist.  Beitrage,  3ter  Band,  vi.  (2))  endeavors  to  save  the  theory  of  end  or 

purpose  from  the  Kantian  and  the  Aristotelian  objection  by  making  the 

intellectual  apprehension  of  design  to  be  original  and  ultimate,  while  the 

sensitive  pleasure  and  pain  are  subsequent,  and  not  precedent,  to  the  act 

of  choice.    It  is  doubtless  true,  that  the  experience  of  moral  good  and 

evil  by  actual  trial  gives  such  vivid  convictions  concerning  their  reality 

and  importance  as  no  previous  anticipation  would  suggest;  but  it  by  no 

means  follows,  that  in  what  man  knows,  or  might  know,  of  his  natural 

capacities,  there  is  not  the  amplest  material  for  the  interpretation  of  the 

ends  for  which  he  was  designed,  and  the  erection  of  this  ideal  into  a  law 

for  his  purposes  and  actions  (cf .  §  54). 


OBJECTIONS  TO  THE  ANTAGONIST  THEORIES. 

§  68.   The  theories  which  we  reject  have  already  been  de- 
scribed.    They  have  this  feature  in  common,  that  counter- 
they  all  derive  the  ethical  relations  and   emotions  objections, 
from  man  as  an  individual,  as  contrasted  with  those  which  hold 


172  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL  SCIENCE.  .    [§  68. 

them  to  be  the  products  of  society.  The  first  is  called  tJie  intU" 
The  intui-  Hional  theory,  and  teaches  that  the  moral  relations 
tionai  the-  are  simple  and  indefinable,  being  apprehended  by 
^^^'  a  direct  intuition  of  the  intellect,  and  followed  by 

emotions  which  cannot  be  explained  by  the  relations  discerned. 
We  reject  this  theory  for  the  following  reasons  :  — 

(1)  It  is  unphilosophical  if  it  is  unnecessary.     The  law  of 

(1)  Unneces-  P^i'simony,  Entia  non  multiplicanda  prceter  necessi- 
sary,  and        tcitem,  eminently  holds  good  of  the  needless  multipli- 

therefore  ,.  «  .    ^    -^l*  •    •      i  .  -r^, 

unphiio-  cation  01  mtuitions  or  origmal  categories.    Whatever 

sophicai.  conception  or  relation  can  be  explained  as  a  com- 
plex of  simple  elements,  or  whatever  intellectual  process  or 
emotional  experience  can  be  resolved  into  simpler  acts  or  emo- 
tions that  are  known  to  be  natural  and  necessary  to  man,  is 
more  rationally  explained  by  such  elements  and  processes  than 
as  an  original  emotional  or  philosophical  intuition  or  experi- 
ence. If  the  analysis  which  we  have  given  of  the  moral  quali- 
ties and  emotions  satisfactorily  explains  the  same,  it  sets  aside 
the  necessity  of  the  intuitional  theory,  and  stamps  it  as  un- 
philosophical. 

(2)  This  theory  contradicts  the  testunony  of  consciousness. 

(2)  Contra-  ^^  ^^^  analysis  is  correct,  moral  relations  are  the 
diets  the  tes-  products  of  the  proccss  of   judging  our  voluntary 

timony  of 

conscious-  achievements  by  a  norm  or  standard  taken  from  the 
ness.  gjj(jg  Qj,  g^jjjjg  yf^hiQh  SLYe  indicated  in  the  nature  of 

man.  It  cannot  be  denied  that  every  human  being  originates 
or  interprets  these  conceptions  in  the  way  which  has  been 
described.  These  conceptions  are  unintelligible  to  any  human 
being  who  does  not  interpret  their  meaning  by  the  elements  or 
materials  furnished  by  this  conscious  experience.  His  personal 
experience  of  these  phenomena,  with  the  relations  which  they 
involve,  must  cover  the  entire  import  of  these  terms.  To  add 
to  these  elements,  all  of  which  are  confessedly  necessary, 
another  relation  or  conception  which  has  no  conceivable  rela- 
tion to  them,  or  dependence  upon  them,  is  manifestly  irrational. 


§68.]  OBJECTIONS,   BEPLIES,  ETC.  173 

To  concede  and  to  contend  that  a  moral  action  must  be  free, 
rational,  reflective,  involving  the  choice  between  our  higher  and 
lower  natural  capacities,  and  yet  to  assert  that  none  of  these 
indispensable  elements  enter  into  or  explain  the  import  of  the 
act  as  moral,  is  not  only  to  contradict  our  conscious  experience, 
but  is  to  do  violence  to  the  axioms  of  philosophic  thinking 
(§68).  It  is  to  assert  that  moral  relations  are  inexplicable 
and  indefinable,  and  yet  to  assert  that  no  act  or  choice  can 
possibly  be  moral  in  which  certain  definite  and  well-known 
elements  are  not  present.  It  is  to  assert  that  a  concept  is  un- 
definable  which  we  forthwith  proceed  to  define,  if  not  by  its 
constituent  logical  elements,  at  least  by  its  psychological  con- 
ditions ;  that  a  concept  is  simple  which  we  forthwith  treat  as 
complex  in  our  analysis  of  its  elements  or  conditions,  one  or 
both  (cf.  §59). 

(3)  This  theory  adds  to  an  original  category  a  relation  which 
is   confessedly  capable   of   being   subsumed   under 
another  category.     Right  action  or  volition  is  con-   ^dds  a  reia- 
f essed  to  be  the  action  or  volition  to  which  man  is   *'«"  *''**  ^^ 

superfluous. 

adapted  by  his  nature  and  circumstances.  This 
proposition  postulates  adaptation  or  design  to  be  objectively 
true  of  the  universe  of  fact,  and  subjectively  valid  as  an  axiom 
for  the  interpretation  of  its  phenomena.  Whether  this  axiom 
mayl)e  assumed  as  a  metaphysical  axiom  which  is  absolutely 
or  relatively  ultimate,  is  of  little  consequence  for  our  purpose, 
so  long  as  moral  relations  can  and  must  be  subsumed  under  it, 
and, defined  by  it.  No  original  category  which  takes  rank  as 
an  intuition  can  possibly  be  subsumed  under  or  defined  by 
another  intuition. 

The  only  answer  which  can  possibly  be  made  to  this  argument  is,  that, 
while  moral  relations  are  capable  of  being  stated  in  terms  of  adaptation, 
they  cannot  be  defined  by  them.  This  must  mean,  that,  while  the  relations 
of  adaptation  must  necessarily  be  affirmed  of  moral  relations,  some  inde- 
finable quality  or  relation  called  their  rectitude,  or  the  want  of  it,  must  be 
added,  to  constitute  or  complete  the  definition.  But  if  the  other  attributes 
do,  in  fact,  distinguish  these  related  concepts  from  concepts  of  every  other 


174  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL  SCIENCE.  [§  68. 

class,  they  satisfy  all  the  conditions  required,  and  exclude  the  necessity, 
and  even  the  possibility,  that  these  so-called  additional  relations  should  be 
recognized  as  original. 

We  admit,  that,  for  the  purposes  of  expounding  moral  science  as  an 
independent  and  separate  science,  these  complex  moral  relations  may  be 
postulated  as  ultimate.  Moreover,  after  they  are  assumed  and  justified 
and  defined,  their  supremacy  is  such  as  to  give  significance  to  every  other 
practical  impulse.  Hence  their  supremacy  over  other  impulses  and  mo- 
tives may  often  be  recognized  as  practically  conceded.  It  does  not  follow, 
however,  that  when  traced  in  their  psychological  growth,  and  analyzed 
into  their  philosophical  elements,  they  may  not  and  must  not  take  their 
place  with  the  science  of  which  they  are  the  postulates,  and  both  rest  on 
those  common  relations  which  psychology  uncovers,  and  philosophy  jeal- 
ously guards,  as  the  deep  and  broad  foundations  on  which  all  the  sciences 
stand  together,  and  are  held  in  common  bonds. 


(4)  "We  reject  this  theory  because  it  connects  with  a  purely 
intellectual  and  indefinable  intuition  a  class  of  emo- 

(4)  Cannot 

account  for      tions  which  havo   no  discoverable  relation  to  that 
the  ethical      yy^hich  is   claimed   to  .be   an  intuition,  nor  to  one 

emotions.       "^ 

another.  These  emotions  are  the  emotions  of  self- 
approbation  or  self-condemnation,  of  obligation  to  do  or  ab- 
stain, of  merit  or  demerit.  That  man,  on  the  recognition  of  an 
act  or  feeling  as  moral,  should  experience  these  three  emotions, 
is  a  matter  of  constant  occurrence  ;  but  that  a  single  relation 
should  originate  these  three  several  emotions,  and  with  so  slight 
a  change  in  the  conditions,  and  that  the  relation  itself  should 
throw  no  light  upon  the  product,  is  contrary  to  all  the  analogies 
of  the  production  of  emotion  in  similar  cases.  As  has  already 
been  intimated,  much  is  made,  in  this  connection,  of  the  mys- 
terious and  peculiar  attribute  of  authority  which  is  supposed  to 
be  inseparable  from  the  intuitions  of  right  and  wrong.  Says 
Dugald  Stewart,  "It  is  absurd,  therefore,  to  ask  why  we  are 
obliged  to  practise  virtue.  The  very  notion  of  virtue  implies 
the  notion  of  obligation.'*  Similarly,  Kant  and  Butler  urge 
that  the  moral  differ  from  the  other  impulses  in  man,  in  that 
they  assert  for  themselves  an  original  supremacy  or  authority, 
—  a  right  to  take  and  keep  the  precedence  in  any  case  of  con- 


§68.]  OBJECTIONS,  REPLIES,  ETC.  175 

flict.  This  authority  we  do  not  question.  The  more  clearly  it 
is  recognized,  and  its  import  is  explained,  the  more  difficult 
is  it  to  explain  the  origination  of  such  a  sentiment  with  such 
authority,  at  the  summons  of  an  intellectual  category  analogous 
to  causation  or  spatiality. 

Kant  has  pertinently  observed  (whether  consistently  with  his  general 
theory,  we  do  not  aflfirm)  that  obligation,  or  moral  authority,  is  the  supe- 
rior will  of  man,  commanding  his  inferior  will.i  If  this  is  true  (and  that 
it  is  we  have  contended  elsewhere),  then  a  metaphysical  category  cannot 
possess  the  power  to  evoke  such  an  emotion  as  that  of  confessed  subjec- 
tion, much  less  two  other  emotions  in  its  train,  like  those  of  self-approbation 
and  merit.  The  elements  of  authority  and  obligation  seem  to  us  to  in- 
here only  in  a  personal  being,  i.e.,  either  the  man  dealing  with  himself  or 
with  other  beings.  Least  of  all,  can  they  be  conceived  of  as  belonging  to  a 
rational  category  or  ultimate  thought-relation  (cf .  Warbubton,  as  quoted 
on  p.  161). 

(5)  This  theory  confounds  the  rapidly  formed  and  quickly 
applied   judgments   and  the  attendant  emotions  of 
mature  life  with  judgments  which  are  known  to  be  founds  intui- 
intuitive,  and  with  instinctive   impulses  which   are  *i<>"a'J"^J- 

'  '  meats  with 

original,  and  incapable  of  analysis.  It  finds  evi-  those  rapidly 
dence  in  the  rapidity,  precision,  and  confidence  with 
which  the  moral  judgments  are  pronounced,  that  they  are  in- 
tuitive and  simple.  Most  of  the  popular,  and  not  a  few  of  the 
scientific,  defenders  of  this  theory  contend  that  these  features 
are  decisive  of  its  truth.  The  human  mind,  they  contend, 
affirms  these  relations  too  early  to  be  able  to  distinguish  and  to 
interpret  their  elements.  It  applies  them  too  quickly  and  too 
positively  for  the  unpractised  mind  of  infancy.  The  objector 
overlooks  the  fact,  which  cannot  be  questioned,  that  these  rela- 
tions, be  they  simple  or  be  they  complex,  are  never  affirmed 
by  the  infant,  except  as  the  result  of  introverted  reflection  and 
intelligent  comparison.     No  child  ever  masters  these  elementary 

1  It  should  be  noticed,  in  interpreting  Kant,  that  he  uses  "  will  "  by  no 
means  as  distinguished  from  the  sensibility,  but  more  frequently  as  blended 
with  it,  and  the  complex  agent  of  the  phenomena  of  impulsive  desire. 


176  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL  SCIENCE.  [§  68. 

conceptions,  or  feels  these  rudimentary  emotions,  except  it  first 
looks  within,  commands,  judges,  and  enforces  by  an  inner 
reward  or  penalty,  that  is,  performs  all  the  processes  which  our 
theory  involves. 

Moreover,  as  we  have  argued  elsewhere,  during  infancy  a  very  wide 
range  of  the  acquired  perceptions  is  mastered ;  giving  command  over  com- 
plicated processes  of  judgment  by  the  eye,  the  ear,  and  the  hand.  What  is 
most  important  to  notice,  these  processes  are  handled  so  dexterously, 
and  the  results  are  accepted  so  quickly  and  positively,  as  to  seem  to 
be  neither  processes  nor  products,  but  intuitive  judgments  directly  pro- 
nounced, and  simple  emotions  instinctively  felt.  No  phenomenon  is  more 
familiar,  and  yet  none  is  more  surprising,  than  the  rapid  and  unreflecting, 
and  yet  not  unintelligent,  use  which  the  infant  mind  makes  of  conceptions 
which  are  complex  in  their  elements,  and  which  are  painfully  analyzed 
long  after  they  are  familiarly  applied. 

(6)  This  theory  is  logically  self-contradictory.  It  makes 
,«^  T     ,.       moral  goodness  to  be,  in  the  language  of  Locke, 

(6)  Is  self-  *  '  o      o  » 

contradic-  "a  simple  idea,''  either  of  quality  or  relation.  It 
^'^*  aflSrms  rightness  of  an  action  as  we  affirm  roundness 

of  a  circle  ;  but  the  action  of  which  it  aflSrms  this  quality  is 
a  volition,  or  an  act  of  choice.  A  choice,  however,  is  in  every 
instance  a  choice  of  some  object.  This  being  so,  the  advocate 
of  the  theory  finds  himself  shut  up  to  the  following  dilemma : 
the  right  choice  must  be  either  the  choice  of  the  right  object, 
or  the  right  choice  of  an  object  which  is  not  itself  right,  i.e., 
not  morally  good.  If  he  takes  the  first  position,  then  rightness 
belongs  to  the  object  chosen,  and  not  to  the  act  of  choosing; 
and  it  also  follows  that  voluntariness  is  not  essential  to  the 
conception  of  rightness.  If  he  takes  the  second,  he  denies 
that  rightness  is  a  simple  idea ;  for  he  defines  the  right  choice 
to  be  the  choice  of  something,  which,  whatever  it  may  be,  has 
no  moral  quality,  and  concedes  that  the  conception  is  resolved 
into  two  elements,  —  the  object,  and  the  act  of  choice.  The 
advocates  of  the  theory  must  either  be  content  to  deny  that  right 
is  an  original  intuition  or  quality,  or  deny  that  it  belongs  to  a 
volition,  or  accept  the  alternative  of  asserting  that  moral  quality 


§68.]  OBJECTIONS,  REPLIES,  ETC.  177 

can  belong  to  the  object  chosen,  or  to  the  act  of  choosing  an 
object  which  is  not  itself  necessarily  moral. 

Compare  the  "Introduction  to  Ethics,"  etc.,  from  the  French  of  Th. 
Jouffroy  (Boston,  1840,  lects.  xxii.,  xxiii.),  for  an  extended  criticism  of  this 
theory  as  held  by  Price.  In  this  criticism,  Jouffroy  insists  at  great  length 
that  moral  good  is  necessarily  a  choice  of  natural  good;  and  that  conse- 
quently moral  good  cannot  be  a  simple,  but  must  be  a  complex  idea,  and 
is  consequently  definable.  Moreover,  it  involves  the  recognition  of  an 
end  as  an  essentially  constituent  element  upon  which  he  argues  thus:  "  If, 
then,  an  action  can  be  judged  only  by  its  relation  to  its  end,  this  end  must 
be  perceived  before  it  is  judged,  and  only  from  the  nature  of  the  end  can 
that  of  the  action  be  determined;  so  that  an  act  will  be  good  if  it  has  a 
certain  end,  or  evil  by  its  relation  of  conformity  to  some  other  end.  The 
goodness  of  actions  is  not,  therefore,  the  only  goodness:  there  is  also  a 
goodness  of  ends.  Again:  in  determining  that  there  are  good  ends,  we 
obtain  a  definition  of  that  which  is  good  in  itself;  and,  as  the  goodness  of 
acts  is  their  conformity  to  good  ends,  we  obtain  also  a  definition  of  this 
moral  goodness,  or  of  the  quality  assumed  to  be  indefinable."  — Vol.  ii.  p. 
327;  cf.  also  Paul  Janet,  La  Morale,  Paris,  1874;  Preface,  English  transla- 
tion, New  York,  1883, 

(7)  The  theory  is  equally  impracticable  when  applied  to 
concrete  examples.     Right  and  wrong,  it  is  said, 

are  original  and  indispensable   relations  ;   and  yet  ©f  consistent 

they  are  affirmable  of  volitions  which  can  show  no  app^cation 

•^  in  practice. 

common  relationship  with  one  another  to  justify  this 
affirmation.  Truth,  justice,  temperance,  courtesy,  are  respec- 
tively right.  But  what  this  rightness  may  be,  which  is  common 
to  all,  we  cannot  define  or  explain.  We  can  give  no  reason  why 
we  assert  that  any- and  every  one  of  them  is  right.  We  can 
give  no  reason  why  we  ought  to  perform  these  righteous  actions, 
except  that  they  are  right.  Moreover,  when  these  claims  or 
obligations  seem  to  conflict,  we  can  give  no  reason  why  one 
should  be  preferred  or  sacrificed  to  another.  They  are  equally 
obligatory  if  equally  right,  and  equally  right  if  each  one  is 
right  of  itself.  One  can  be  no  more  right  than  the  other.  All 
stand  upon  the  same  plane,  all  are  impelled  by  the  same  mo- 
tives, all  are  enforced  by  the  same  authority. 


178  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL  SCIENCE.  [§  68. 

Moreover,  as  Jouffroy  urges  against  Price,  the  hypothesis  makes  it  im- 
possible to  conceive  that  there  should  be  any  difference  of  opinion  in 
respect  to  questions  of  practical  morality.  "  But,  if  this  is  true,  what  is 
the  consequence  ?  It  is  as  follows :  that  all  men  are  equally  capable  of 
appreciating  the  morality  of  actions,  and  consequently  equally  enlightened 
in  moral  judgment;  that  in  this  respect,  therefore,  there  can  be  no  differ- 
ence between  the  learned  and  the  ignorant,  and  men  of  different  ages; 
that  moral  science,  consequently,  cannot  be  developed  and  enforced  with 
the  progress  of  civilization,  but  that  savages  must  be  equally  well  informed 
with  ourselves  ;  that  the  morality  of  no  action  can  be  proved  or  deduced 
from  that  of  other  actions,  and  consequently  that  morality  can  neither 
be  reduced  to  a  system  nor  taught ;  and,  finally,  that  what  we  call  ethics 
cannot  be  a  science,  or,  if  it  is  so,  that  it  can  be  nothing  more  than  a  cata- 
logue of  actions  discovered  by  reason  to  be  good  or  bad."— /nirod.,  etc., 
vol.  u.  pp.  309,  310. 

(8)  The  intuitional  theory  introduces  a  speculative  and  prac- 
i  -  ^^^^^  incongruity  between  the  supposed  insensitive 
lence  to  the  moral  reason  and  man's  instinctive  and  irrepressible 
8ire"for  wtu-  ^^sire  for  his  personal  well-being.  The  principal 
being.  motive  which  inspires  the  defenders  of  this  theory 

is  to  provide  for  the  disinterestedness  of  human  virtue  by  clear- 
ing the  conception  of  moral  goodness  from  any  element  or 
relation  of  human  happiness ;  it  being  assumed,  that,  if  virtue 
is  defined,  the  definition  must  include  some  relation  to  man's 
sensitive  nature. 

This  is  well  intended,  no  doubt ;  but  it  should  be  remembered, 
on  the  other  hand,  that  a  motive  to  virtue  which  does  not  find 
its  sphere  of  action  among  the  natural  sensibilities  may  be  too 
stately  to  be  human,  and  too  unreal  to  be  true.  Moreover,  the 
simple  desire  of  happiness  is  an  impulse  which  is  ineradicable, 
and  at  least  innocent.  It  is  also  the  root  of  some  of  the 
noblest  special  impulses  and  individual  virtues.  To  fail  to 
recognize  it  is  unphilosophical,  while  to  attempt  to  flout  or  to 
deny  it,  tempts  to  affectation  in  theory  and  to  hypocrisy  in 
practice.  It  would  seem  to  be  a  recommendation  rather  than 
an  objection  to  any  theory,  that  it  adjusts  a  theoretical  and 
practical  strife  which  is  as  unreasonable  as  it  is  unnatural.     On 


§68.]  OBJECTIONS,  EEPLIES,  ETC.  179 

the  other  hand,  it  ought  to  be  a  fatal  objection  to  the  intuitional 
theory,  that  it  opens  an  impassable  chasm  of  thought  between 
duty  and  happiness,  and  incites  and  foments  a  perpetual  con- 
flict between  the  two  strongest  motives  that  animate  human 
nature,  —  the  desire  of  virtue  and  tHe  desire  of  well-being. 

This  chasm  was  never  opened  more  widely  than  by  Kant's 
ethical  system,  and  Nature  never  had  her  revenge  in  a  more 
signal  way  than  in  the  inconsistencies  and  concessions  of  Kant 
himself. 

Hermann  Lotze  most  justly  remarks  upon  this  feature  of  Kant's  system 
(Miki'okosmus,  vol.  ii.  p.  314),  "  Doubtless  that  is  of  inferior 
worth  which  corresponds  only  to  a  momentary  and  acciden-  ^.^^  ^^  Kant' 
tal  condition,  or  an  individual  peculiarity  of  the  temper  on 
which  an  impression  may  fall ;  greater  is  the  worth  of  that  which  is  in 
harmony  with  the  universal  and  normal  features  of  that  organization  by 
means  of  which  the  spirit  is  qualified  to  fulfil  its  destiny ;  the  highest  of 
all  may  be  that  which  would  favor  the  permanent  mood  of  an  ideal  dispo- 
sition, from  whose  internal  states  every  deviation  from  the  end  of  its 
development  was  effaced.  Any  thing  higher  than  these,  there  cannot  be. 
The  thought  of  any  thing  which  is  somehow  unconditionally  valuable, 
that  does  not  show  its  value  by  its  capacity  to  give  happiness,  overleaps 
itself  and  that  which  it  would  bring  to  pass.  Doubtless  it  was  a  praise- 
worthy rigor  of  practical  philosophy  that  desired  to  free  all  the  laws  of 
duty  from  even  a  side  wise  respect  to  the  advantage  of  the  agent;  but  it 
was  unjust  in  this  rigor  to  seek  to  separate  the  manifest  and  undeniable 
connection,  in  which,  notwithstanding  the  despised,  and  in  most  of  its 
applications  the  despicable  notion  of  happiness  stands  to  the  other  notion 
of  intrinsic  worth." 

Friedrich  Ueberweg  writes  in  Fichte's  Zeitschrift  (vol.  xxxiv.  p.  78), "  The 
true  system  of  idealistic  realism  does  not,  with  Kant  and 
Herbart,  reject  all  respect  to  the  result  aimed  at,  as  a  deter-  ®  ©'weg  s. 
mining  ground  of  moral  action.  Just  as  little  does  it  with  the  Utilitarians 
and  Hedonists  find  the  moral  norm  in  the  object  gained,  or  more  exactly  in 
the  highest  measure  of  happiness,  but  in  the  relations  of  its  worth.  The 
highest  energy,  and  the  highest  pleasure  necessarily  connected  therewith, 
must  be  sought  for,  but  the  highest  qualitatively.  All  our  inspirations  and 
endeavors  must  be  directed  to  that  activity  and  pleasure  which  is  of  the 
highest  and  most  spiritual  worth."— Cf.  also  Professor  E.  Pfleiderer, 
Euddmonismus  und  Egoismus;  Jahrbucher  fur  prot.  Theologie,  6ter  Jahr- 
gang,  i.,  ii.,  iii.,  iv.,  Leipzig,  1880  :  also  Kantischer  Kriticismus  und  Englische 
Philosophie ;  Fichte's  Zeitschrift,  1880-81. 


180  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL  SCIENCE.  [§  68. 

(9)  The  intuitional  theory  sanctions  and  inspires  an  irrecon- 
(9)  Intro-  cilable  strife  between  the  love  of  goodness,  and 
duces  a  strife  obedience  to  duty,  for  their  own  sake,  and  out  of 

between  two 

legitimate  respect  to  thosc  motives  which  are  always  auxiliary, 
impulses.  ^jj(j  often  indispensable,  to  moral  excellence.  This 
objection,  in  principle,  is  akin  to  the  last ;  and  yet  it  assumes  a 
definite  theoretical  and  practical  form  for  itself.  To  be  moved 
by  the  commands  and  threatenings,  even  of  a  perfect  God, 
according  to  the  intuitional  theory,  is  to  respond  to  motives 
that  are  addressed  to  the  sensitive  rather  than  the  moral  nature  ; 
and  yet  motives  of  this  sort  are  found  to  be  practically  effective, 
and  even  essential,  to  give  full  effect  to  the  motives  which  are 
purely  moral.  The  extreme  position  to  which  Kant  was  driven 
by  the  logical  rigor  of  his  theory,  against  the  need  and  the 
desirableness  of  influences  distinctly  religious,  is  a  single  ex- 
ample of  the  disastrous  consequences  which  have  followed  the 
extreme  positions  of  the  intuitionalists.  These  consequences 
have  not  been  confined  to  the  schools :  they  have  penetrated 
everywhere  into  practical  life.  Personality  in  God,  supernatu- 
ral manifestations  in  human  history,  the  authority  of  his  will, 
the  desire  to  please  and  the  dread  of  offending  him,  have  often 
been  driven  out  from  the  faith  of  thinkers,  and  lost  their  hold 
of  many  who  were  not  logicians  by  profession,  by  the  conclu- 
sion, that  if  virtue  shines  by  its  own  light,  and  commands  by 
its  own  authority,  then  the  authority  of  either  man  or  God  to 
enforce  her  behests  is  a  needless  superfluity,  an  incongruous 
hinderance  or  a  fatal  obstacle  to  the  highest  forms  of  goodness. 
And  yet  subjection  to  personal  authority  in  God  and  man,  and 
training  by  personal  love,  have  been  found  to  be  practically 
indispensable.  Even  Kant  himself  abandons  the  logical  con- 
sistency of  his  theory,  when  he  makes  his  categorical  impera- 
tive to  summon  God  into  being,  that  he  may' reward  virtue  with 
the  happiness,  and  punish  vice  with  the  misery,  to  which  his 
theory  had  made  both  to  be  sublimely  and  conscientiously  in- 
different.    It  may  be  taken  for  granted,  that  a  theory  which 


§68.]  OBJECTIONS,  BEPLTES,  ETC.  181 

involves  itself  in  practical  difficulties  so  serious  cannot  be 
thoroughly  sound  in  its  principles. 

II.  The  two  other  alternative  theories  are  Hutcheson's  theory 
of  the  moral  sense,  and  Kant's  theory  of  the  practical  reason 
with  its  categorical  imperative.    Each  will  need  but  a  brief  notice. 

The  theory  of  the  moral  sense  finds  the  germ  or  nucleus  of 
all   moral  qualities  in  certain  original  emotions   or 

^  *  II.  The 

sentiments.  It  is  questioned  by  some,  whether  its  theory  of 
advocates  intend  wholly  to  exclude  the  intellectual  """'^^  ^®"*®* 
element  from  their  moral  sense.  There  can  be  no  question  that 
their  theory  lays  the  chief  stress  on  that  which  is  emotional. 
Interpreting  the  theory  thus,  it  finds  man  to  be  so  constituted 
as  to  feel  certain  emotions  on  occasion  of  certain  voluntary 
activities  of  his  own  or  of  his  fellow-men.  Certain  of  these 
activities  please  him,  others  displease  him.  The  actions  which 
please  him  he  approves,  as  also  the  person  who  performs  them  ; 
those  which  offend  him  he  disapproves  and  condemns,  whether 
they  are  purposes,  emotions,  or  deeds.  The  activities  and  per- 
sons which  please  him  he  also  pronounces  morally  good,  while 
those  which  offend  him  are  morally  evil.  The  capacity  to  be 
thus  affected  towards  actions  and  their  originators  he  calls  "the 
moral  sense."  It  is  obvious  that  this  moral  sense  is  conceived 
by  the  most,  if  not  by  all  of  its  advocates,  as  analo-    .    , 

*'  '  "^  Analogous 

gous  to  the  aesthetic  sensibility,  i.e.,  as  a  capacity  to  to  aesthetic 
be  directly  pleased  or  displeased  by  certain  personal  ^®"^*  *  ^' 
affections.  Why  we  are  thus  affected  we  cannot  explain ;  we 
only  know  the  occasions  or  causes  of  these  contrasted  emotions. 
This  moral  sensibility  being  supposed,  the  functions  <5f  the 
intellect  with  respect  to  it  are  very  readily  defined  and  ex- 
plained. The  intellect  simply  recognizes  the  acts  or  feelings 
which  please  or  displease  the  moral  sense,  and  judges  and 
names  them  and  their  authors  to  be  morally  good  or  bad,  very 
much  as  in  sense-perception  the  sensible  qualities,  pre-eminently 
the  secondary,  are  defined  by  the  sense-affections  which  they 
excite.     The  intellect  can  give  no  reason  for  its  favorable  or 


182  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL  SCIENCE.  [§  68. 

unfavorable  judgments.  Both  these  are  resolved  into  an  ori- 
ginal taste  or  distaste,  which  the  moral  sense  experiences  and 
makes  possible.  The  sensibility  simply  precedes  and  furnishes 
the  material  for  the  intellectual  action.  It  is  the  germinant 
nucleus  or  principle  from  which  all  the  subsequent  judgments 
and  emotions  are  evolved.  Its  affections  are  to  be  taken  as 
ultimate  and  inexplicable  facts.  Against  these  original  and 
ultimate  likings  and  dislikings,  no  appeal  can  be  taken  ;  because 
these  emotions  of  pleasure  and  pain  are  original.  Not  infre- 
quently this  faculty  is  termed  "an  instinct,"  or  ''the  moral 
instinct;"  and  its  affections  are  called  "instinctive."  The 
superior  force  or  impelling  power  of  the  right  affections  is  found 
in  the  superior  quality  of  the  affections  themselves,  added  to 
the  pleasure  furnished  by  the  moral  sensibility,  when  contrasted 
with  the  inferior  character  of  the  vicious  affection,  added  to  the 
distaste  of  the  moral  sense. 

The  defects  of  this  theory  are  the  following :  It  is  not  rational, 
Defects  of  as  wc  have  already  asserted  of  the  intuitional  the- 
this  theory,  ^^y^  if  it  is  not  required  to  explain  the  facts.  It 
does  not  correspond  with  our  conscious  experience,  which,  so  far 
as  it  can  testify,  affirms  that  the  moral  emotions  do  not  precede, 
but  follow,  the  acts  of  rational  judgment,  and  are  dependent  on 
the  same  for  their  peculiar  quality.  It  makes  the  ultimate  moral 
standard  changeable  and  arbitrary,  inasmuch  as  it  depends  on 
the  taste  of  the  individual.  Should  the  moral  faculty  be  con- 
ceived to  be  analogous  to  the  bodily  sense,  its  affections,  as  we 
know,  must  depend  on  the  joint  activities  of  material  agents  and 
the  responsive  organism.  Should  either  of  these  factors  change, 
or  both,  the  effect  would  change,  and  might  even  be  reversed. 
If  its  analogue  is  found  in  the  aesthetic  sensibility,  the  adage 
would  apply  as  properly  to  the  ethical  as  to  the  aesthetic  expe- 
riences, De  gustihus  non  est  disputandum.  If  the  analogies 
from  either  cannot  be  accepted,  the  objection  still  remains  that 
an  unreasoning  emotion  can  never  be  made  the  basis  of  those 
judgments  which  so  often  require  careful  inductions,  the  weigh- 


§68.]  OBJECTIONS,   REPLIES,   ETC.  183 

ing  of  evidence  and  testimony,  and  the  consideration  of  tenden- 
cies and  results.  All  these  processes  are  confessedly  intellectual, 
and  it  scarcely  seems  probable  that  each  and  all  of  them  find 
an  ultimate  factor  and  germinal  element  in  an  emotion  which 
pleases  or  displeases  the  sensibility.  The  presence  of  these 
processes  would  imply  that  the  ultimate  in  morals  is  a  relation 
discerned  by  the  intellect,  which  is  capable  of  being  affirmed  as 
a  rule  or  law.  The  theory  of  the  moral  sense,  moreover,  pro- 
vides for  none  of  the  emotions  which  we  have  recognized  as 
distinctively  ethical,  neither  for  self-satisfaction,  nor  obligation, 
nor  merit,  and  in  this  is  seriously  and  even  fatally  defective. 

in.  Kant's  theory  of  the  practical  reason  moves  in  the  same 
line  with  the  theory  of  the  moral  sense  ;  although  it 
professes  altogether  to  set  aside  the  sensibilities  in  ory  of  the 

the  moral  experiences,  and  to  find  the  primitive  ele-  P^a«**«a* 

reason, 
ment  of  all  in  the  categorical  imperative  or  uncondi- 
tional obligation.    But  the  subjective  correlate  of  this  categorical 
imperative  is,  in  the  last  analysis,  nothing  more  than  a  blind 
emotion.     In  the  Kantian  theory,  the  practical  reason  performs 
the  functions  of  the  moral  sense,  which  is  unrelated  to  any  of 
the  other  functions  which  morality  implies,  and  yet  directs  and 
controls  them  all.     Consequently  this  theory  is  open  to  most  of 
the  objections  that  are  urged  against  the  theory  of  moral  sense. 
Its  claim   to   dispense  with   the   emotions   has   most   signally 
failed.     The  "reverence"  before  the  law  of  duty,  which  it 
accepts  and  enforces,  is  itself  a  sentiment  with  the 
impelling  force  of  a  controlling  emotion.     The  ne-  before  the 
cessity  which  requires  the  existence  and  authority  **^  \^  ^  ^^^' 
of  God  to  meet  the  just  claims  of  the  good  to  be 
happy,  we  have  already  shown  to  be  a  confession  that   the 
rights  of  the  sensibility  and  the  law  of  well-being  cannot  be 
successfully  overlooked  in  any  moral  theory.     Even  the  super- 
ficial student  of  Kant  cannot  be  struck  with  the  difficulty  which 
Kant  finds  in  disposing  of  Achtung,  or  reverence  before  the  law, 
without  calling  it  a  sensibility,  and  with  the  stress  which  drives 


184  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL  SCIENCE.  [§  69. 

him  to  require  for  the  experience  of  obligation  an  unnatural 
preponderance  of  the  sensuous  affections ;  implying  a  sense  of 
constraint  as  the  condition  of  the  sense  of  duty,  involving  the 
paradox  that  virtue  must  resist  in  order  to  be  sensitive  to  obli- 
gation, while  holiness,  as  the  higher  state,  feels  no  obligation, 
but  is  emancipated  from  the  sense  of  duty  in  any  form. 

§  69.  The  theories  here  expounded  of  the  moral  faculty,  and  the  rela- 
tions and  feelings  which  it  originates,  may  be  advantageously 

The  theory       compared  with  that  which  is  taught  by  Bishop  Butler,  and  is 

B  11  ^  **^  deservedly  held  in  high  esteem  and  authority.  In  general, 
we  may  say  that  Butler  attempts  no  psychological  analysis 

of  the  so-called  moral  faculty,  his  chief  object  being  to  establish  its  su- 
premacy.   He  leaves  it  to  his  readers  to  select  between  four 

Butler  gires     different  appellatives  for  it,  in  the  words,  **  whether  called 

noanaysis       conscience,  moral  reason,  moral  sense,  or  divine  reason" 

of  the  moral 

faculty.  (Diss.,  II.).    As  to  whether  it  is  distinctly  intellectual  or 

emotional,  he  declines  to  give  any  opinion,  except  in  the  mem- 
orable words  which  seem  to  have  accidentally  escaped  from  him :  "  whether 
considered  as  a  perception  of  the  understanding,  or  as  a  sentiment  of  the 
heart,  or,  which  seems  the  truth,  as  including  both  "  (Diss.,  II.). 

All  these  theories,  that  of  Butler  included,«,re  alike  in  the  view  which 
they  take  of  the  subject  or  object  matter  of  the  moral  judgments  and 
feelings,  in  so  far  as  they  all  teach  that  right  and  wrong  are  aflSrmed  only 
of  acts  or  active  states  ;  "  intentions  "  and  "  practical  principles  "  being 
included  under  these  designations.  They  differ,  in  that  Butler  implies, 
rather  than  asserts,  that  the  voluntary  power,  both  in  act  and  state,  is 
essential  to  moral  responsibility.  But  he  only  implies  this;  and  it  is  well 
known  with  what  characteristic  caution  he  avoids  any  metaphysical  dis- 
cussion of  the  doctrine  of  necessity,  and  limits  himself  to  its  relations  to 
practice  (Analogy,  part  i.  chap.  vi.).  Much  less  does  he  attempt  to  explain 
by  any  careful  psychological  analysis  the  elements  contributed  by  the  will 
to  the  moral  judgments  and  emotions. 

He  does  indeed  insist  that  there  is  "  a  principle  of  reflection  "  in  man, 

which  in  its  very  nature  is  superior  to  every  other,  being 
Defective  invested  with  unquestioned  "  authority,"  and  that  to  disobey 

ih  *"l*"t  \  this  principle  under  the  impulse  of  passion  is  to  offend  against 
of  reflection,     it^  lawful  supremacy.    He  does  not,  however,  explain,  or 

even  imply,  what  relation  this  principle  of  reflection  holds  to 
self-consciousness,  nor  whence  it  derives  its  authority.  The  language 
which  he  uses,  as  it  has  been  generally  interpreted,  would  leave  the  im- 
pression that  this  principle  of  reflection  is  a  special  ethical  endowment, 
whose  functions  are  limited  to  the  ethical  experiences  ;  being  in  its  nature 


§69.]  OBJECTIONS,   BEPLIES,  ETC.  185 

co-ordinate  with  the  other  impulses  or  sensibilities,  except,  that,  when  it 
comes  into  conflict  with  any,  it  is  felt  and  owned  to  be  supreme.  He  does 
not  show  bow  it  gains  an  ideal  of  what  is  possible  and  desirable  by  the 
comparative  study  of  man's  nature,  although  he  incidentally  recognizes 
the  fact  that  such  a  comparative  judgment  is  made  ;  still  less  does  he 
explain  for  what  reason  and  by  what  method  it  applies  this  ideal  as  an 
authoritative  law. 

The  theory  we  hold  is,  that  the  so-called  "principle  of  reflection"  is 
none  other  than  the  endowment  of  self-consciousness,  which  not  only  dis- 
cerns the  presence,  but  judges  of  the  natural  quality  or  worth,  of  the  vari- 
ous impulses  which  are  the  springs  of  feeling  and  action,  and  which  give 
character  to  the  motives  between  which  we  choose.  It  recognizes  the 
self-conscious  ego,  and  not  a  *'  sentiment "  or  "  principle  "  as  invested  with 
authority;  giving  the  law,  which  it  finds  within,  to  the  will,  and  by  it  testing 
and  judging  its  activity. 

Butler  does  indeed  insist  that  we  judge  of  actions  by  a  comparing  of 

them  with  "  the  nature  and  capacities  of  our  being,"  and  in 

this  may  be  said  in  a  sense  to  imply  all  that  we  have  dis-   Following 

tinguished  in  our  analysis.    This  is  true  ;  but  a  more  careful   "*  ^5®  **" 
"  •'  '  cording  to 

analysis  seems  to  be  required  in  order  to  show  what  this    Butler. 

principle  of  reflection  really  is,  how  it  operates,  upon  what 

material,  and  with  what  results.    In  other  words,  Butler  fails  to  show  that 

the  capacities  of  man  as  natural  endowments  must  first  be  discriminated, 

in  order  that  the  voluntary  and  intelligent  use  of  them  may  be  discerned 

to  be  morally  right  or  wrong. 

Butler  makes  an  abundant  and  positive  use  of  the  end  to  which  any 
voluntary  agent  is  adapted,  as  essential  to  the  existence  and 
authority  of  moral  relations  ;  and,  as  a  theist,  he  assumes    f^*  f 
that  such  ends  involve  design  on  the  part  of  the  Creator,    jj^^j^j  j-ause. 
But  he  nowhere  emphasizes  the  necessary  inference  that  the 
relation  of  fitness  or  adaptation  enters  into  the  ethical  relations  as  a  defin- 
ing element.    In  Butler's  time,  what  is  now  called  finality,  or  teleology, 
was  known  as  **  final  cause,"  and,  though  generally  accepted  and  employed 
in  natural  theology,  was  not  distinctly  recognized  as  a  metaphysical  or 
scientific  category,  nor  was  its  place  as  a  relation  fundamental  to  ethics 
formally  recognized,  except  perhaps  indirectly  in  Clark's  "Fitness  of 
Things." 

In  respect  to  the  feelings  or  emotions  which  are  distinctly  ethical,  But- 
ler's analysis  is  noticeably  defective.    Neither  self-approbation 
nor  self-reproach  is  subjected  by  him  to  any  special  inquiry.    I^oes  not 

The  sense  or  feeling  of  obligation  is  not  recognized  distinctly    ®^P;*'"  *"® 
°      ,  ,  „    ,  ethical  emo- 

as  an  emotion.    Much  as  Butler  makes  of  the  authority  of   ^io^g, 

the  conscience,  he  does  not  explain  whether  the  response 

which  is  rendered  to  this  authority  is  originally  a  feeling,  or  a  judgment ; 


186  ELEMENTS  OF  MOBAL   SCIENCE.  [§  69. 

i.e.,  whether  it  is  a  feeling  founded  on  judgment,  or  a  judgment  founded 
on  feeling.  Merit  and  demerit  he  makes  more  of;  but  he  does  not  attempt 
an  analysis  of  their  constituent  elements,  or  a  genesis  of  their  growth.  He 
does  not  ask  whether  intuition  or  emotion  precedes,  or  whether  there  is 
any  connection  between  the  several  classes  of  ethical  emotions,  —  viz., 
between  self-approbation,  obligation,  and  merit,  with  their  correlates, — 
either  in  origination  or  dependence.  Our  theory  makes  them  to  be  inter- 
dependent in  nature  and  origin,  and  in  a  sense  to  be  naturally  developed 
the  one  from  the  other.  Compare  in  James  Martineau's  "  Essays,  Philo- 
sophical and  Theological "  (vol.  ii.  pp.  14-18,  New  York),  his  remarks  upon 
Butler's  theory,  originally  published  in  "The  Prospective  Review,"  No- 
vember, 1845.    We  give  the  following  extracts  :  — 

"  Every  moral  judgment  is  relative,  and  involves  a  comparison  of  two 
James  terms.    When  we  praise  what  has  been  done,  it  is  with  the 

Martineau's  co-existent  conception  of  something  else  that  might  have  been 
criticism  of  done;  and  when  we  resolve  on  a  course  as  right,  it  is  to  the 
Butler.  exclusion  of  some  other  that  is  wrong.    This  fact,  that  every 

ethical  decision  is  in  truth  a  preference,  an  election  of  one  act  as  higher 
than  another,  appears  to  us  of  fundamental  importance  in  the  analysis  of 
the  moral  sentiments.  .  .  . 

**  The  preferential  character  attaching  to  all  moral  judgments  is  implied, 
and  yet,  as  it  seems  to  us,  very  inaccurately  represented,  by  Butler.  It 
consists,  in  his  view,  of  a  uniform  postponement  of  all  sorts  of  natural 
good  to  one  and  the  same  moral  good ;  and  in  the  comparison  from  which 
we  make  our  election,  one  of  the  terms  is  constant  and  invariable,  —  virtue 
rather  than  appetite,  virtue  rather  than  resentment,  virtue  rather  than 
affection.  .  .  . 

"The  single  additional  end  of  conscience  constitutes  moral  good,  which 
has  a  natural  right  of  supremacy  over  the  other.  The  controversy,  there- 
fore, of  a  tempted  life,  consists  in  the  struggle  of  natural  good  against  the 
rightful  superiority  of  moral;  and  the  subordination  of  a  well-regulated 
life,  in  the  level  subjection  of  the  entire  class  of  particular  desires  to  the 
authority  set  over  them. 

"  Now,  for  our  own  part,  after  the  most  diligent  search,  we  cannot  find 
within  us  this  autocratic  faculty,  having  its  own  private  and  paramount 
end.  ... 

"  Between  virtue  and  a  good  dinner,  or  virtue  and  a  full  purse,  we  never 
experienced  a  rivalry ;  and,  were  such  a  controversy  and  Hercules-choice 
to  bo  proposed,  we  much  fear,  looking  to  the  phantom-like  character  of  the 
other  disputant,  that  the  dinner  and  the  purse  would  win  the  day.  But 
we  remember  a  boy  who  once  went  on  a  day's  excursion  among  the  lakes 
and  hills,  provided  with  an  excellent  luncheon  calculated  for  a  mountain 
appetite.  He  had  gone  an  hour  or  two  beyond  his  reasonable  time,  and 
just  unpacked  his  store  beside  a  stream,  when  a  little  girl  approached, 


§69.]  OBJECTIONS,  REPLIES,  ETC.  187 

half-leading,  half-dragging,  an  old  man  evidently  collapsing  from  exhaus- 
tion. They  had  attempted  a  short  cut  over  the  ridge  the  day  before,  lost 
their  way,  and  spent  the  night  and  noon  without  food  or  shelter  on  the 
hills.  The  boy  divided  the  contents  of  his  basket  between  them;  the 
'  particular  passion,'  pity,  getting  the  better  of  the  *  particular  appetite,' 
hunger,  and  making  itself  felt,  as  having  the  higher  claim.  .  .  . 

"And  it  is  the  irresistible  sense  we  have,  in  this  case,  of  its  superiority, 
that  is  properly  denoted  by  the  word  conscience ;  the  knowledge  with  our- 
selves, not  only  of  the  fact,  but  of  the  quality  of  our  inward  springs  of 
action.  To  state  the  matter  in  a  more  general  way,  we  think,  that,  in  com- 
mon with  the  inferior  animals,  we  are  created  with  certain  determinate 
propensities  to  particular  ends,  or  with  provisions  for  the  development  of 
such  propensities;  that,  in  the  lower  animals,  these  operate  singly  and 
successively,  each  taking  its  turn  for  the  command  and  guidance  of  the 
creature,  and  none  of  them  becoming  objects  of  reflection ;  that  in  us  also 
this  instinctive  impulse  is  the  original  type  of  activity,  and  would  become 
permanent  in  a  solitary  human  being,  or  in  a  mind  with  only  one  propen- 
sion  at  a  time ;  but  that,  with  us,  the  same  occasion  calls  up  simultaneously 
two  or  more  springs  of  action;  that,  immediately  on  their  juxtaposition, 
we  intuitively  discern  the  higher  quality  of  one  than  another,  giving  it  a 
divine  and  authoritative  right  of  preference;  that,  when  the  whole  series 
of  springs  of  action  has  been  experienced,  the  feeling  or  '  knowledge  with 
ourselves '  of  their  relative  rank  constitutes  the  individual  conscience ; 
that  all  human  beings,  when  their  consciousness  is  faithfully  interpreted, 
as  infallibly  arrive  at  the  same  series  of  moral  estimates  as  at  the  same 
set  of  rational  truths  ;  that  it  is  no  less  correct,  therefore,  to  speak  of  a 
universal  conscience  than  of  a  universal  reason  in  mankind  ;  and  that  on 
this  community  of  nature  alone  rests  the  possibility  of  ethical  science." 


188  ELEMENTS  OF  MOBAL  SCIENCE.  [§  70. 


CHAPTER  XI. 

THE  EXTERNAL  ACTIONS  :  THEIR  MORAL  QUALITY  AND 
RELATIONS. 

§  70.  Thus  far  we  have  considered  the  internal,  —  i.e.,  the 
Hitherto  we  psjchical,  —  pre-eminently  the  voluntary  activities 
hare  been  of  man,  as  the  objects-mattcr  of  the  moral  judg- 
wiiirthe  ments  and  feelings.  We  have  limited  ourselves  to 
feelings  and  the  functions  of  the  intellect  in  discerning  those 
moral  relations  —  and  those  only  —  which  are  in- 
volved in  the  voluntary  or  spiritual  activities  of  man.  We 
have  discovered  that  the  intellect,  by  its  self-conscious  power 
and  activities,  finds  the  norm  or  standard  of  its  judgments  in 
man's  internal  constitution  or  capacities;  i.e.,  in  the  compara- 
tive worth  or  good  which  the  several  impulses  or  affections 
may  yield  when  interpreted  as  revealing  the  end  of  his  activ- 
ities, and  the  ideal  of  his  perfection.  We  have  discovered, 
further,  that  man,  as  rational,  must  propose  and  prescribe  to 
himself  the  use  of  the  best  natural  activities  as  the  norm 
or  law  for  his  voluntary  choices.  Morality  is  consequently 
founded  on  reason ;  but  it  is  upon  the  reason  as  it  con- 
cerns itself  with  the  relations  of  the  voluntary  activities  to 
one  another,  and  the  possibilities  of  human  nature.  We  have 
discovered,  further,  that  the  enforcement  of  this  law  is  neces- 
sarily followed  by  the  special  ethical  emotions,  giving  the 
experiences  of  self-approbation,  obligation,  merit,  with  their 
opposites. 


§  71.]  THE  EXTEBNAL  ACTIONS,  189 

The  problem  and  the  solution  have  thus  far  been  compara- 
tively simple.  The  data  are  within  the  reach  of  every  one  who 
reflects.  Their  import  and  relations  are  easily  understood,  and 
our  judgments  of  them  are  immediate  and  unerring.  The  de- 
cisions being  axiomatic  and  positive,  the  consequent  emotions 
are  uniform  and  constant. 

But  morality  does  not  concern  itself  with  the  intentions  alone. 
It  gives  law  to  the  actions  also,  passing  judgment 
upon  the  doings  as  truly  as  upon  the  affections  and  cannot  be 
purposes.     It  requires  that  the  man  should  act  and  ii™»tedtothe 

^     ^  ^  intentions. 

speak  rightly,  as  truly  as  that  he  should  purpose 
and  feel  and  choose  rightly.  In  the  order  of  education,  indeed, 
and  in  the  experiences  of  common  life,  it  often  seems  as 
though  morality  confined  itself  to  what  a  man  does  and  says, 
and  concerned  itself  with  nothing  behind  or  beyond ;  but  a 
more  penetrating  insight  reveals  the  fact  that  its  soul  and  life 
are  altogether  in  the  feelings  and  purposes. 

As  we  look  again,  we  find,  also,  that  while  it  is  true  that  in 
one  sense  the  intentions  or  purposes  are  of  supreme 
consequence  in  morals,  so  far  at  least  as  the  per-  aisoimpor- 
sonal  responsibility  and  the  personal  well-being  of  **"*' 
the  individual  are  concerned,  yet  in  another  sense  the  actions 
are  equally  important,  so  far  as  their  interpretation  by  others 
and  their  effect  upon  others  are  concerned.  We  also  find  it  to 
be  true  in  fact,  that  rules  for  the  actions  have  been  formed 
and  enforced  as  a  necessary  and  universal  condition  of  human 
welfare,  and  as  the  natural  outgrowth  of  the  moral  judgments. 
That  men  often  stop  short  with  the  actions,  and  are  content 
with  limiting  their  rules  to  these  only,  proves  that  rules  for 
the  behavior  and  conduct  are  natural  and  necessary,  but  not  at 
all  that  these  are  the  chief  objects  of  the  moral  judgments  or 
feelings,  or  that  the  latter  are  limited  to  the  manners  or  words 
or  deeds. 

§  71.  We  mean  by  the  actions  all  corporal  activities  what- 
ever, from  a  hateful  look  to  a  murderous  blow,  which  give  out- 


190  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL  SCIENCE.  [§  71. 

ward  manifestation  or  expression  or  effect  to  the  purposes  or 
Beasonswhy  ^^^^^^gs.  These  actions  are  of  consequence  for 
they  are  im-  the  following  reasons :  TJiey  execute  the  purposes, 
they  manifest  or  express  them,  they  strengthen  them, 
they  make  them  habitual  and  spontaneous. 

(1)  External  actions  give  effect  to,  and  thus  complete,  the 
(1)  The  exe-  P^^P^^es.  Every  purpose  is,. in  its  own  nature,  a 
cute  the  pur-  purpose  to  act.  Whenever  a  man  chooses,  intends, 
poses.  ^^  purposes,  he  chooses  some  object.     But  he  can- 

not choose  an  object  unless  he  formally  or  impliedly  gives  su- 
premacy to  an  impulse  which  tends  to  issue  in  action.  In  popu- 
lar language,  he  chooses  all  those  effects  which  are  the  natural 
and  necessary  consequences  of  his  choice.  Inasmuch  as  inten- 
tions impel  to  deeds,  he  cannot  exercise  the  intentions  without 
performing  the  deeds  which  are  intended,  unless  hindered  by 
some  superior  or  stronger  force.  If  he  actually  chooses  that 
his  neighbor  shall  enjoy  some  good,  he  chooses,  if  he  can,  to 
do  what  will  make  him  happy  in  some  definite  form.  If  he 
really  wishes,  in  the  sense  of  willing,  *' Be  ye  warmed  or  be 
ye  clothed,'*  and  does  nothing  for  the  warmth  or  clothing  of 
another  when  he  is  able,  he  does  not  morally  will  that  he  be 
warmed  or  clothed.  If  a  man  wills  his  own  well-being,  in 
general  or  special,  by  the  supreme  purpose  or  impulse  of  his 
nature,  he  will  also  do  whatever  he  can  which  may  promote 
that  well-being.  We  say,  whatever  is  in  his  power  in  either 
case.  We  do  not  assert  for  men  the  power,  i.e.,  the  exter- 
nal instrumentality,  to  accomplish  all  on  which  their  hearts 
are  bent  or  set ;  but  we  do  assert,  that  whenever  it  is  in  the 
power  of  a  man  to  do  any  thing  in  the  direction  of  his  inten- 
tions or  controlling  purposes,  he  cannot  really  wish  or  will 
unless  he  also  acts  in  obedience  to  his  will.  While,  then, 
it  is  true  that  the  moral  relations  belong  primarily  to  the 
intentions,  it  is  equally  true  that  they  also  extend  to  and 
enforce  the-  actions  which  are  the  necessary  complement  of  those 
intentions. 


§  71.]  THE  EXTERNAL  ACTIONS.  191 

(2)  The  external  actions  manifest  or  make  known  the  feel- 
ings and  purposes,  as  truly  as  they  obey  and  execute 

them.^  Man  is  not  only  impelled,  i.e.,  morally  manifest 
obliged,  to  complete  his  purposes,  but  he  is  impelled 
to  make  them  known  from  irrepressible  impulses,  as  also  for  the 
incitement  of  his  fellow-men  to  imitate  them.  It  is,  of  course, 
presumed  that  the  outward  acts  are  morally  right.  But  every 
manifested  purpose,  if  morally  good,  inspires  others  to  follow 
it.  By  the  same  rule,  every  wrong  intention  is  fitted  to  deter 
others  from  imitation,  by  its  manifested  moral  unworthiness. 
It  becomes  a  duty  with  every  man,  for  this  reason  if  for  no 
other,  to  abstain  from  evil  words  and  deeds,  however  lightly  in 
the  cases  supposed  he  may  be  likely  to  be  moved  by  this  addi- 
tional consideration.  ,„,  „  ^ 

(3)  Make 

(3)  To  execute  or  even  to  speak  the  intention,  them  more 
makes  it  more  energetic.  Whether  we  can  explain  ®*^®*s****<'- 
the  fact,  or  not,  the  fact  cannot   be  questioned,  that  a  right 

1  Man,  as  we  know  him,  is  not  spirit  only,  but  he  is  also  body;  and  the 
human  body  is  more  than  flesh  and  bones,  nerve  and  tissue.  Human  flesh 
and  tissue  are  capable  of  expressing  feeling  and  design  by  the  natural 
language  of  gesture  and  tone  and  facial  expression.  How  far  this  symbol- 
ism is  the  product  of  imitation,  or  intensified  by  sympathy,  or  taught  by 
authority,  we  need  not  inquire.  It  is  enough  if  we  accept  the  truth,  that 
something  of  word  and  look  and  gesture  and  movement  is  used,  by  a  natu- 
ral impulse,  to  express  the  feelings,  and  is  interpreted  by  natural  insight 
to  signify  them.  All  philosophy  implies  or  teaches  this,  —  the  materialistic 
pre-eminently,  with  its  propagated  tendencies  affecting  and  uniting  im- 
pulse and  word,  emotion  and  act. 

The  recognition  of  this  law  does  not  exclude  imitation  and  culture,  or 
positive  enactments  of  law  and  custom:  it  rather  finds  a  place  for  them. 
But  it  explains  natural  morals  by  their  original  elements.  It  enforces  the 
necessity  of  expressing  the  feelings  by  gesture  and  act,  the  possibility  of 
interpreting  both,  and  the  duty  of  acting  in  certain  ways,  all  of  which  con- 
trol and  animate  natural  ethics.  It  explains  the  fact  that  natural  manners 
or  modes  of  action  and  speech  become  positive  morals,  by  a  sense  of  Avhat 
is  fit  and  becoming  in  speech  and  look  and  movement ;  how  sympathy 
enforces  particular  duties  of  outward  act ;  and  how  even  convention, 
fashion,  and  arbitrary  enactments,  impose  the  ethical  obligation  to  conform 
to  what  are  the  current  or  accepted  ways  of  doing  or  speaking. 


192  ELEMENTS  OF  MOBAL  SCIENCE.  [§  72. 

purpose,  when  spoken  by  a  word  or  acted  in  a  deed,  or  even 
manifested  by  a  look,  becomes  more  active  and  energetic. 
Such  is  the  complex  nature  of  man,  and  such  are  the  condi- 
tions of  his  development  as  a  psycho-physiological  being,  that 
bodily  manifestation  gives  strength  and  permanence  to  every 
impulse.  Hence  the  obligation  to  speak  or  act  our  intentions 
becomes  synonymous  with  the  obligation  to  make  them  as  ener- 
getic as  possible,  it  being  always  presumed  that  they  are  morally 
right.  For,  if  they  are  wrong,  the  obligation  not  to  act  or 
speak  them  follows  from  the  duty  not  to  intend  or  will  wrongly. 

(4)  The  acting-out  of  the  intentions  also  strengthens  them 
C4)  Confirm  ^^*^  habits,  both  internal  and  external,  whether 
them  into  intellectual,  emotional,  or  expressional.  The  man 
who  follows  every  purpose  with  a  deed,  thereby 
trains  his  passive  capacities  to  such  methods  of  service  and  aid 
as  can  be  readily  repeated.  He  brings  the  associative  power  to 
the  side  of  duty,  and  holds  himself  to  its  service  by  the  ready 
response  and  co-operation  of  all  the  powers  of  his  complex  na- 
ture, as  body  and  spirit,  as  intellect,  sensibility,  and  will.  He 
trains  his  active  energies  and  passive  susceptibilities  to  act  in 
harmony  with  one  another  under  the  controlling  purposes  which 
the  conscience  approves.  For  all  these  reasons,  the  deed  can 
never  be  regarded  as  either  indifferent  or  superfluous,  but  as 
the  natural  and  necessary,  and  morally  obligatory,  manifesta- 
tion and  completion  of  the  inward  purpose.  The  familiar  words 
are  no  less  practically  important  than  they  are  philosophically 
profound :  "  Seest  thou  how  faith  wrought  with  his  works,  and 
by  works  was  faith  made  perfect. '^ 

§  72.  It  follows,  that  whenever  an  external  action,  a  look  or 
Enies  for  the  word  or  deed,  stands  in  any  of  the  relations  named 
feelings  to  a  purposc  or  intention,  the  intellect  imposes  a  law 

include  rules     „  ,  .  .  i  /.       ^  i  o     >. 

for  the  foi'  this  action  as  truly  as  for  the  purpose,     bo  far 

actions.  g^g  j^jjy  Qjjp  Qf  fiiiese  relations  is  constant  and  neces- 

sary, such  a  law  is  fixed  and  absolute.  So  far  as  it  is  variable 
and  uncertain,  the  law  is  occasional,  and  admits  of  exceptions. 


§  72.]  THE  EXTERNAL  ACTIONS.  193 

Whenever  an  action  is  invariably  necessary  to  execute,  to  mani- 
fest, or  to  confirm  the  right  intention,  the  law  is 
imperative  that  the  given  action  must  invariably  be  actions  are 
performed,  or,  as  the  case  may  be,  be  avoided,  invariably 
Every  action  which  is  evidently  and  without  excep- 
tion fitted  to  promote  my  own  well-being  or  that  of  my  fellow- 
man  is  known  to  be  invariably  right;  i.e.,  it  is  known  to  be 
an  action  which  I  always  ought  to  perform.  We  neither  ask 
nor  answer  the  question  whether  the  number  of  such  actions  be 
great  or  small ;  we  do  not  inquire  whether  it  is  by  natural  or 
supernatural  revelation  that  any  actions  are  declared  to  hold 
this  relation :  we  only  assert,  that  if,  upon  any  evidence,  this 
is  known  to  be  true  of  any  class  of  actions,  those  actions  are 
uniformly  and  unchangeably  right,  and  their  opposites  are  as 
uniformly  wrong,  simply  on  the  ground  that  we  ought  to  intend 
or  purpose  our  own  well-being  and  that  of  our  fellow-men,  and, 
impliedly,  the  honor  of  God.  It  follows,  that  whatever  actions 
invariably  promote  these  ends  should  invariably  be  performed. 
The  rule  in  respect  to  such  words  and  actions  is  absolute  and 
unqualified :  Tliou  shalt,  or  Thou  shalt  not.  We  may  safely 
assume  that  the  classes  of  actions  are  few  which  respect  our 
fellow-men  or  ourselves,  the  import  and  effect  of  which  are  so 
clear,  that  all  men  accept  them  as  universally  obligatory.  But, 
whether  they  be  few  or  many,  the  mind  aflSrms,  of  all  of  them, 
positive  axioms  or  principles  of  outward  conduct. 

Of  the  great  majority  of  external  actions,  it  must  be  said, 
that  while,  in  the  majority  of  cases,  their  effect  and  ^^^^^  actions 

import  are  so  obvious  that  no  man  can  question  that  are  obliga- 
tory only  in 
they  are  right  or  wrong ;  yet  now  and  then  circum-  the  majority 

stances  will  occur  which  will  not  only  justify,  but  ^^  ^*^®** 

require,  a  deviation  from  the  ordinary  rule.     Thus,  in  ordinary 

cases,  no  man  can  take  the  liberty,  the  life,  or  the  property  of 

another.     This  rule,   it  is  well  known,   has   been   interpreted 

to  mean  that  human  life,  liberty,  and  property  are  uniformly  to 

be  held  sacred,  and  so  sacred  that  neither  the  individual  nor 


194  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL   SCIENCE.  [§  73. 

the  state  may  interfere  with  either  under  any  supposable  cir- 
cumstances.    The   experiences   of    stern  necessity 

Exceptional  -,•        •^     ^        ^  .       .     -,  .     ,     . 

cases  which      ordmarily  teach  men  to  judge  more  wisely  m  prac- 

justify  them-  ticc,  and  drive  them  to  limit  such  universal  axioms 
by  manifold  and  manifest  exceptions,  such  as  com- 
pel attention  and  enforce  compliance.  The  state  takes  life  as  a 
penalty  for  crime,  not  only  by  right,  but  of  duty.  It  exposes 
(i.e.,  sacrifices)  life,  by  compelling  the  drafted  soldier  to  march 
to  the  picket-line,  and  die.  It  shoots  down  the  innocent  with 
the  guilty  in  quelling  a  street-riot.  It  takes  the  property  of  an 
individual  under  extreme  necessity,  and  the  individual  does  the 
same.  It  subjects  the  innocent  to  temporary  or  permanent  dis- 
abilities, in  respect  to  liberty  or  other  rights,  under  extreme 
conditions  of  public  or  state  necessit3\  The  cases  are  not  un- 
frequent  in  which  an  individual  or  the  community,  for  reasons 
that  justify  the  act  in  the  eyes  of  all  candid  men,  transgresses 
the  ordinary  rules  which  guard  life,  liberty,  and  property. 
Even  the  civil  law,  which  concerns  itself  with  the  grosser  viola- 
tions of  the  few  ordinary  moral  laws  which  it  attempts  to  en- 
force, rarely  proceeds  to  punish  any  external  action,  unless  it 
assumes,  or  impliedly  proves,  that  the  act  was  performed  with 
felonious  intent  or  malice  aforethought. 

All  these  exceptional  cases  not  only  justify,  but  require,  pos- 
sible exceptions  to  the  ordinary  rules  which  relate  to  external 
action.  Hence  the  law  to  do  or  not  to  do  a  particular  thing 
is  always  so  interpreted  as  to  admit  this  or  that  qualified  excep- 
tion, whether  or  not  this  exception  is  expressed. 

§  73.  Another  important  fact  deserves  to  be  considered  ;  viz., 
Moral  signifl-  ^'^^^  external  actions,  in  many  cases,  vary  in  their 
cance  of  ac      signijicance  with  the  manners  or  etiquette  which  pre- 

tions  varies 

with  man-  vail  in  a  community.  We  need  not  mquu'e  as  to 
"®"*  how  these  manners  came  to  be  accepted,  — whether 

from  physical,  or  personal,  or  conventional  reasons.  It  is 
enough  that  we  know  that  every  community  finds  itself  in 
possession  of  certain  modes  or  ways  of  speaking  and  acting, 


§  73.]  THE  EXTERNAL  ACTION 8\jC a  ^        195 


which  manifest,  execute,  or  confirm  the  feelings  or  purposes.' 
From  manners,  —  i.e.,  ways  of  speaking  and  acting,  —  the  terms 
"morals"  and  "ethics"  are  derived;  and  with  conformity  to 
manners,  and  the  regulation  of  manners,  they  very  largely  con- 
cern themselves.  Just  as  soon  and  just  as  far  as  the  intentions 
become  the  subject  of  moral  judgment  and  enforcement,  just 
so  soon  do  the  actions  which  are  understood  in  the  community 
to  be  their  appropriate  manifestations  pass  under  the  control 
and  adjudication  of  the  moral  reason. 

The  accepted  manners  or  etiquette  are  by  no  means  the  same 
in  all  communities;  e.g.,  the  modes  of  expressing  jj^^gg  ^^ 
love  and  hate,  esteem  and  disrespect,  the  conditions  manners 
of  conveying  property  or  securing  rights.  But,  what-  ^^^^' 
ever  these  may  be,  if  established  and  accepted  they  are  invested 
with  the  sacredness  and  authority  which  belong  to  the  feelings 
of  kindness,  courtesy,  truth,  patriotism,  affection,  and  gratitude 
which  they  are  supposed  to  express.  It  follows  of  necessity, 
and  it  should  occasion  no  surprise,  that  an  action  which  is  wholly 
indifferent  in  one  community  may  be  of  the  highest  moral  sig- 
nificance in  another.  Again,  an  action  or  word  or  look  which 
in  one  community  is  rigidly  enforced  by  the  highest  moral 
authority,  — an  act  which  even  involves  the  issues  of  life  and 
death,  —  in  another  community  may  have  no  moral  significance 
whatever.  Some  nations  are  so  fierce  and  minute  in  their  en- 
forcement of  trivial  and  stupid  etiquette,  as  to  obscure  and 
crush  out  the  ethical  import  of  many  of  the  actions  which  they 
prescribe.  Others  are  so  careless  and  indefinite  in  respect  to 
both  manners  and  actions,  as  to  blunt  the  public  sensibility  to 
moral  distinctions,  by  their  indifference  to  external  conduct. 
The  morality  of  the  Chinese  is  very  largely  a  matter  of  etiquette, 
which  sacrifices  the  real  well-being  of  the  individual  Morality  of 
and  the  community  to  petrified  and  meaningless  the  Chinese, 
rules,  to  the  observance  of  which  the  entire  force  of  domestic 
education,  of  unchanging  fashion,  of  legal  observances,  of 
organized   law  and   a  half -pantheistic  religion,  are  committed 


196  ELEMENTS  OF  MOBAL   SCIENCE.  [§  74. 

with  a  resistless  energy  that  seems  as  mysterious  as  it  is  om- 
nipotent. But  whether  the  connection  between  the  purposes 
and  the  actions  is  natural  or  conventional,  some  connection 
must  be  assumed  to  be  more  or  less  uniform  and  fixed,  as  the 
ground  of  aflBrming  any  code  for  the  words,  the  deeds,  or  the 
manners. 

§  74.  The  cases  already  supposed  are  cases  in  which  the 
Sometimes  Connection  is  uniform,  or  which  admit  of  infrequent 
exceptions  exceptions.  But  there  are  large  classes  of  actions 
in  which  such  a  connection  is  by  no  means  estab- 
lished. Although,  in  the  majority  of  instances,  the  right  inten- 
tion would  require  a  certain  external  action,  the  exceptions  are 
more  or  less  frequent.  Thus,  benevolence  to  my  fellow-man  in 
extreme  distress  would  very  frequently  require  me  to  interfere 
actively  for  his  relief,  while  cases  might  occur  in  which  to  ex- 
tend this  relief  would  be  morally  wrong.  If  one  of  my  own 
family  were  in  immediate  danger  of  death  or  of  serious  evil,  it 
might  be  my  duty  to  withhold  from  my  nearest  neighbor  those 
offices  of  courtesy  or  assistance  which  would  otherwise  be  obli- 
gatory and  spontaneously  proffered.  In  respect  to  all  acts  of 
this  description,  rules  for  action  are  adopted  with  the  general 
understanding  that  they  are  to  be  obeyed  under  the  ordinary 
conditions  of  social  existence,  while  in  those  which  are  extraor- 
dinary, whether  they  are  more  or  less  frequent,  the  exceptions 
will  justify  themselves.  In  the  motley  experiences  of  social  life, 
and  the  unexpected  conjunctions  of  human  events,  men  occa- 
sionally are  surprised  to'  find  themselves  morally  obliged  to  do 
and  avoid  actions  which  in  the  ordinary  course  of  human  events 
would  contradict  all  their  preconceived  principles,  and  shock 
their  most  sacred  and  confirmed  associations.  Moral  surprises 
of  this  sort  are  among  the  most  dramatic  of  human  experiences. 

There  are  other  classes  of  actions  which  are  obligatory  more 
Maxims  of  frequently  than  otherwise,  — maximsof  practical  wis- 
prudence.  ^Jqjh  qj.  prudence,  which  are  both  useful  as  guides  for 
the  conduct  and  important  as  directors  to  the  conscience.    Such 


§75.]  THE  EXTERNAL  ACTIONS.  197 

rules,  in  every  case  in  which  they  are  applicable,  are  as  sacred 
and  as  binding  as  the  rules  which  admit  of  no  exceptions  at  all. 
The  fact  that  they  are  not  uniformly  binding,  or  that  the  ex- 
ceptions to  them  are  numerous,  does  not  weaken  their  authority 
in  the  least  in  those  cases  in  which  they  are  known  to  apply. 

Again,  there  are  classes  of  duties  which  are  binding  on  a 
single  individual  and  for  a  limited  period  of  time,  be  it  longer 
or  shorter,  —  duties  both  to  one's  self  and  fellow-men,  which  are 
founded  on  special  circumstances  and  temporary  relations.  It 
should  ever  be  remembered,  however,  that  these  duties  are  as 
supreme  and  sacred  in  their  authority,  so  long  as  the  reasons  for 
their  continuance  remain,  as  are  the  codes  which  are  universal 
and  eternal. 

Each  individual  man  also  must  of  necessity  form  his  own 
private  code  of  rules,  which  is  far  more  minute  than  p  .^  x 
any  moral  teacher  would  venture  to  prescribe  or  en-   individual 
force,  respecting  the  employment  of  his  time,  the 
regulation  of  his  diet,  of  his  manners  and  his  modes  of  speech, 
indeed,  in  respect  to  the  most  of  his  individual  habits  of  action. 
This  code  may  not  be  expressed  in  language,  it  may  change 
with  changing  circumstances ;  and  yet,  so  long  as  the  reasons 
for  it  exist,  so  long  it  has  complete  moral  authority. 

§  75.  It  may  be  objected  to  this  view  of  special  rules  for  the 
external  actions,  that  it  subiects  the  determination   ^  .    , 

''  Objection 

of  all  rules  of  conduct  (with  their  exceptions)  to  the  stated  and 
independent  judgment  of  each  individual  man,  and  *"^^®'®  • 
consequently  degrades  the  moral  code,  .which  ought  to  be  the 
master  of  the  man,  to  be  the  servant  of  his  caprice  or  his  igno- 
rance. This  objection  applies  equally  to  the  doctrine  of  private 
judgment  as  related  to  the  authority  and  independence  of  truth. 
The  fact  that  truth  is  one  and  supreme  cannot  conflict  with  the 
principle  that  each  man's  individual  judgment  of  truth  must  be 
final  and  sacred  for  himself.  Even  if  all  the  formal  or  ex- 
pressed rules  for  conduct  were  the  same  in  every  case  and  for 
every  individual,  and  admitted  no  exception,  each  man's  judg- 


198  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL   SCIENCE.  [§  75. 

ment  must  decide  how  far  they  apply  to  the  changing  aspects 
of  his  individual  life  and  to  his  own  special  relations  to  his 
fellow-men.  In  judging  of  the  application  of  rules,  the  oppor- 
tunity for  bias  and  mistake  is  almost  equal  to  that  which  attends 
the  determination  of  the  rule.  In  respect  to  neither  can  we 
ever  be  delivered  from  the  liability  to  error  in  our  individual 
judgments. 

On  the  other  hand,  it  should  not  be  forgotten  that  important 

advantages  attend  this  double  liability  to  mistake 

advantages      ^^^  error.     What  is  called  the  changeableness  of 

from  this  ar-  moral  codes,  and  their  flexibility,  are  no  grounds 
rangement.  ./ '  o 

of  objection,  but  rather  confirmations  of  their  excel- 
lence. So  far  from  weakening  the  authority  and  threatening 
the  permanency  of  the  moral  law,  they  strengthen  its  sacred- 
ness,  and  establish  its  continuance  by  providing  for  its  useful- 
ness. The  intellect  is  thereby  subjected  to  a  constant  moral 
training,  from  which  is  derived  a  constant  moral  discipline. 
Every  man  is  thereby  made  responsible  not  only  for  what  he 
does,  but  for  what  he  judges  that  he  ought  to  do  ;  and  the  duties 
of  teachableness,  honesty,  and  candor  in  the  use  of  the  intellect, 
are  constantly  brought  into  requisition.  It  is  fashionable,  in 
view  of  the  necessary  and  natural  limitations  of  the  human  un- 
derstanding, to  limit  the  responsibilities  of  men  almost  entirely 
to  what  they  do  and  feel,  to  the  exclusion  of  their  judgments 
and  opinions  respecting  duty.  A  closer  and  more  accurate 
view  of  man's  individual  and  social  relations  would  justify  the 
'  opposite  conclusion  ;  viz.,  that  men  are  very  largely 

Men  responsi- 
ble for  tiieir    responsible,  not  only  for  what  they  do  and  intend, 
judgments       ^^^  ^^^^  ^^^     ^isit  they  believe  and  conclude  (cf. 

as  truly  as  j  \ 

for  their  §  75).  This  conclusion  is  justified  not  only  by  the 
logic  which  compels  us  to  refer  the  conduct  and 
feelings  of  men  to  their  judgments,  but  by  the  observation  of 
facts,  which  finds  everywhere  abundant  evidence  that  men 
shape  their  rules  of  conduct,  to  a  large  extent,  by  the  moulding 
influence  of  their  passions  and  desires.     What  men  are  in  char- 


§76.]  THE  EXTERNAL  ACTIONS.  199 

acter,  is  determined  very  largely  by  what  they  accept  as  rules 
of  duty.  More  than  this  is  true.  Not  only  are  the  opinions 
and  prejudices  of  men  in  respect  to  ethical  questions  powerfully 
affected  by  their  character,  but  their  purposes  and  passions 
re-act  indirectly  but  powerfully  upon  their  intellectual  habits 
'and  opinions. 

§  76.  These  observations,  however,  apply  to  those  rules  of 
external  conduct  which  admit  of  more  or  fewer  ex-  ,j,,,g  ^^^^ 
ceptions.     The  commanding  duties  of  life,  in  the  manding 

,      .  ^  duties  of  life 

ordmary  occasions  and  circumstances  of  man,  can-  admit  of  rare 
not  possibly  be  uncertain,  as  the  duties  of  truth,  exceptions, 
temperance,  justice,  and  humanity,  neither  in  their  import, 
their  authority,  nor  their  ordinary  applications  to  the  outward 
conduct.  The  well-being  of  the  individual  and  of  society 
enforces  certain  external  actions  too  clearly  and  too  emphatically 
to  make  it  possible  for  men  to  look  each  other  in  the  face  and 
not  to  recognize  these  duties  as  invariably  binding. 

*'  The  primal  duties  shine  aloft  like  stars." 

The  duties  of  temperance  and  purity  and  truth  .and  courtesy 
and  justice,  of  honesty  and  uprightness,  are  acknowledged  and 
enforced  by  the  reflecting  judgments  of  all  honest  and  earnest 
men.  Even  when  men  habitually  and  persistently  offend  against 
these  rules,  they  dare  not  deny  their  value  and  authority.  Their 
self-respect  and  inner  sense  of  truth  require  them  to  honor  and 
enforce  the  very  laws  which  condemn  them.  Even  when  they 
palliate  their  defective  conduct  or  their  deliberate  transgres- 
sions, by  the  force  of  passion  or  the  strength  of  temptation, 
they  cling  to  the  law  and  their  faith  in  it,  and  respect  for  it, 
as  most  sacred  and  valuable.  It  is  true,  they  not  infrequently 
refuse  to  recognize  their  individual  offences  as  properly  coming 
under  the  rule  which  they  honor.  They  devise  every  variety  of 
euphemistic  phraseology  to  avoid  applying  the  harsher  epithets 
which  express  the  sharp  judgments  and  the  indignant  emotions 


200  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL  SCIENCE.  [§  77. 

of  the  honest  rule  when  honestly  applied.  It  is  only  when  a 
man  sets  himself  in  defiance  to  and  against  all  truth  and  con- 
sistency of  thinking,  that  he  denies  or  disputes  the  truth  of  the 
great  rules  of  outward  conduct  that  elevate  man  above  what  is 
lower  than  the  brute  in  sensual  passion,  and  more  cruel  than 
the  brute  in  violence  and  hate. 

§  77.  It  is  more  than  possible,  it  is  probable,  that  the  objec- 
Theend  *^^^   might  occur  to  some,  that  the  principles  we 

justifies  the  have  propounded  in  respect  to  the  relation  of  the 
means.  inner  purpose  to  the  outward  expression  or  act  is 

the  same  as  the  doctrine  familiarly  known  as  "  The  end  justi- 
fies the  means."  This  doctrine  has  been  applied  to  sanction 
almost  every  variety  of  crime,  under  the  pretext  that  the  action 
in  question  —  whether  murder,  theft,  violence,  treachery,  or 
falsehood  —  was,  under  special  circumstances,  the  best  or  the 
necessary  means  of  fulfilling  the  best  intentions,  whether  of 
patriotism,  religion,  or  social  or  individual  welfare.  "We  meet 
this  objection  by  observing,  that,  in  respect  to  those  classes  of 
external  actions  which  are  accepted  as  of  universal  obligation, 
it  is  so  manifest  that  the  virtues  in  question  are  the  only  external 
actions  which  the  right  or  good  intention  can  possibly  require 
or  even  admit,  that  no  honest  man  would  question  that  the 
external  act  is  uniformly  binding.  This  is  manifest  from  ex- 
amples of  what  seem  at  first  to  be  exceptions  to  the  ordinary 
rules.  These  exceptions,  as  we  say,  justify  themselves.  They 
even  enforce  the  rule,  by  calling  attention  to  the  reason  for  it 
which  the  exception  recognizes  in  pleading  it  as  an  excuse. 
Thus  homicide  is  not  always  murder ;  violence  to  the  person,  in 
order  to  save  from  death,  is  not  a  criminal  assault ;  the  break- 
ing into  a  burning  house  in  order  to  arouse  the  sleeping  inmates 
is  not  burglary,  either  in  law  or  morals :  for  the  single  reason 
that  in  these  cases  the  external  action  is  seen  to  be  exceptional 
to  its  ordinary  import  and  effect ;  and  hence,  in  such  cases,  the 
end  does  justify  the  means.  In  every  such  case,  it  is  literally 
true,  Exceptio  probat  regulam;  that  is,  the  reason   for  the 


§  78.]  THE  EXTERNAL  ACTIONS.  201 

deviation  is  the  reason  for  implicit  obedience  whenever  the  cir- 
cumstances do  not  justify  an  exception  damante  voce. 

§  78.  It  may  be  urged  as  an  objection,  that  our  theory  in- 
volves the  necessity  of  calculating  the  consequences  ^ 
of  every  single  action,  the  power  to  do  which,  in  tion  of  con- 
every  special  case,  would  be  utterly  beyond  the  ^®«"®^<'«s- 
reach  of  any  man,  and  the  necessity  of  exercising  the  power 
would  render  all  rules  useless.  It  is  enough  to  reply,  that,  in 
respect  to  the  great  rules  of  common  morality,  there  is  no  need 
of  calculating  their  consequences,  because  these  are  discerned 
and  admitted  by  all  men  as  rapidly  as  they  are  made  acquainted 
with  them.  The  universal  tendency  or  import  and  operation  of 
the  act  are  discerned  with  an  insight  which  for  quickness  and 
positiveness  is  equivalent  to  an  intuition.  The  same  is  true  of 
the  assent  to  those  rules  which  are  very  general,  though  not 
strictly  universal.  It  is  only  when  the  consequences  compel 
attention  that  they  need  to  be  calculated  or  considered,  — when 
they  compel  it  with  such  energy  as  to  justify  the  exceptions, 
as,  in  the  cases  already  supposed,  of  justifiable  homicide  or 
violence. 

In  the  case  of  those  rules  which  admit  frequent  exceptions, 
the  consequences  must  be  considered  whenever  a  deviation  from 
the  rule  is  allowed. 

We  may  not  overlook  the  fact,  in  this  connection,  that  edu- 
cation and  tradition,  manners  and  religion,  have  Every  person 
much  to  do  with  the  determination  of  questions  of  >nore  or  less 

,  ,  T  .     •  .  ,  .11  1         influenced 

external  conduct ;  and  it  is  neither  possible  nor  de-  by  the  com- 
sirable  that  any  human  being  should  separate  him-  »»onity' 
self  from  the  past  which  he  inherits,  or  the  present  by  which  he 
is  surrounded,  in  determining  the  moral  authority  of  the  rules 
of  his  external  life.  Every  man  finds  himself,  from  his  infancy 
to  his  death,  more  or  less  in  a  state  of  pupilage  and  depend- 
ence, with  respect  to  his  fellow-men,  in  deciding  questions  of 

1  Cf.  Dr.  T.  Dwight's  Theology,  sermon  xcix. 


202  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL  SCIENCE.  [§  78. 

duty.  It  is  only  partially  at  the  completest,  and  gradually  at 
the  latest,  that  any  individual  attains  that  measure  of  indiffer- 
ence to  others  which  he  can  never  completely  assert.  Man  is 
born  and  dies  in  the  family,  the  church,  and  the  state.  He 
must  begin  his  moral  life  by  recognizing  the  teachings  and 
authority  of  each,  although  it  is  both  his  right  and  his  duty  to 
revise  and  to  dissent  more  or  less  from  each  in  regulating  his 
life  as  he  becomes  more  and  more  self-relying. 

The  maxim,  "The  end  justifies  the  means,"  as  ordinarily 
The  end  applied,    supposes   two   external   actions  or  events 

justifies  the  instead  of  one,  of  which  one  is  the  end,  and  the 
other  is  the  mean.  For  example:  the  taking  of 
life,  and  breach  of  faith,  we  may  suppose  are  the  means ;  the 
removal  of  a  tyrant,  and  the  recovery  of  lost  rights,  are  the 
ends :  both  being  conceded  to  be  desirable  ends  and  valuable 
blessings,  not  only  to  an  individual,  but  to  the  community.  In 
view  of  these  ends,  an  act,  say  tyrannicide,  wl^ich  would  other- 
wise be  criminal,  is,  as  is  alleged,  justified  as  the  necessary 
and  therefore  the  lawful  means  of  the  greatest  good. 

The  principle  for  which  we  have  contended,  as  necessary  to 
the  moral  determination  of  the  external  conduct,  contemplates 
but  one  action,  which  is  supposed  to  be  the  uniform,  or  at 
least  the  usually  recognized,  method  of  manifesting  or  exe- 
cuting the  intention  or  purpose,  and  for  this  reason  is  taken  as 
uniformly  obligatory.  The  voluntary  purpose  is  not  properly 
considered  as  the  means  at  all,  to  the  external  action.  Ethi- 
cally it  is  complete  in  itself.  It  is  all  that  the  moral  law 
directly  requires.  Its  being  acted  and  expressed  in  action  is, 
so  to  speak,  an  incident  of  its  existence,  —  an  incident  which 
is  certain,  necessary,  and  morally  obligatory  indeed,  but  not 
related  to  it  as  the  end  is  to  a  means;  i.e.,  as  one  external 
phenomena  or  event  is  an  end  to  another  as  its  means,  with  an 
intention  or  purpose  behind  both. 

As  the  terms  of  the  relations  vary  in  the  two  cases,  it  is  not 
surprising  that  the  same  should  be  true  of  the  relations  them- 


§  79.]  THE  EXTEBNAL  ACTIONS.  203 

selves.     In  the  one  case,  the  aim  or  intention  is  supposed  to  be 
fixed.     In  the  other  case,  the  ends  are  supposed  to 
be  diverse.     In  the  one  case,  the  only  varying  ele-   between  a 
ment  is  the  fitness  of  an  action  to  promote  a  single  c^an^e  in 

the  terms 

and  fixed  purpose.  In  many  cases,  this  fitness  is  related,  and  a 
assumed  to  be  incapable  of  change  ;  while,  in  many  ^^*"f®  *"  **^® 
other  cases,  it  changes  rarely.  In  the  other  case,  it 
is  denied  that  there  is  any  fixed  relation  between  action  and 
intention  in  the  effect  or  operation  of  external  actions ;  or,  at 
least,  that  any  are  fixed  in  the  interest  of  moral  obligation. 
Hence  it  is  inferred  that  man  is  at  liberty  to  assume  for  himself 
to  judge  of  the  consequences  of  any  one  of  his  own  actions,  to 
the  exclusion  of  the  indications  which  he  finds  in  the  established 
order  of  the  universe  and  the  purposes  of  its  Author.  The 
doctrine  is  at  once  irrational  and  atheistic  in  its  theory,  and 
licentious  and  demoralizing  in  its  practical  influence. 

§  79.  Akin  to  this  doctrine  is  the  casuistic  expedient  for  a 
very  lax  morality  in  conduct,  which  has  been  more 

•^  -^  '  Direction 

or  less  notorious  under  the  title  of  "  the  direction  of  the 
of  the  intention."  ^  The  doctrine  is  briefly  as  fol-  *°t«"tion. 
lows  :  Let  it  be  conceded  that  whatever  a  man  does  is  good  or 
bad,  according  to  his  intention.  Let  him  now  perform  any  act 
whatever,  and  have  a  good  end  in  view :  the  moral  excellence 
of  his  good  intention  will  give  moral  quality  to  the  act,  no 
matter  what  the  character  or  effect  of  that  act  may  be.  He 
may  murder  or  steal  or  lie ;  but,  if  he  designs  thereby  the 
good  of  men  or  the  glory  of  God,  he  is  morally  approved  in 
accordance  with  what  he  designs,  and  with  that  only.  We  may 
safely  accept  the  principle,  that  what  a  man  purposes  or  designs 
determines  the  moral  quality  of  the  agent ;  but  we  should  deny 
that  a  man  can  design  any  thing  which  is  good,  and  yet  re- 
frain from  a  certain  action,  much  less  that  he  could  possibly  do 
that  which  he  knows  or  might  know  would  defeat  that  very 

1  See  the  instructive  chapter  in  P.  Jaket,  La  Morale,  Paris;  translated 

as  The  Theory  of  Morals,  New  Yorli,  1883. 


204  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL  SCIENCE.  [§  79. 

good  on  which,  as  is  contended,  his  heart  may  be  set.  In  eveiy 
case  he  is  shut  up  to  the  necessity,  both  logical  and  moral,  of 
performing  a  specific  action,  —  either  that  one  which  he  certainly 
knows  that  a  morally  right  intention  uniformly  requires,  or  the 
act  which  he  confidently  believes  is  demanded  under  present 
circumstances.  No  direction  of  the  intention  to  any  other  aim 
than  that  which  the  man  actually  achieves,  no  attempt  to  ani- 
mate a  bad  deed  with  the  soul  of  benevolence  or  saintly  devo- 
tion, can  relieve  the  conscience  of  the  perpetrator  from  the 
sense  of  personal  responsibility,  or  that  of  his  adviser  from 
complicity  with  his  guilt. 

To  interpret  the  principle  that  the  intention  is  the  all-impor- 
tant element  in  morality,  so  as  to  justify  the  doctrine  that  a 
good  intention  justifies  any  means  for  its  realization,  and  there- 
fore that  the  external  conduct  is  a  matter  of  indifierence,  is  to 
insult  the  common  judgment  of  mankind  in  respect  to  the  sig- 
nificance of  manners  and  of  conduct.  It  is  to  do  worse :  it  is 
to  weaken  the  faith  of  men  in  the  moral  order  of  the  universe 
as  controlling  all  external  and  physical  events  in  the  interest  of 
the  moral  law. 

The  discussion  of  the  topic  is  useful,  however,  so  far  as  it 
serves  to  bring  into  bold  relief  the  truth  that  it  is  impossible  to 
construct  any  theory  of  ethics  unless  we  recognize  the  presence 
of  design  in  the  universe ;  and  also  the  truth,  that  design  not 
only  controls  the  relations  of  man  to  himself  in  the  inner  work- 
ings of  his  being,  but  also  provides  for  the  harmony  of  the 
regard  for  self,  in  the  best  sense  of  the  term,  with  love  to  our 
fellow-men,  and  even  controls  the  physical  relations  of  man  as 
an  individual  and  man  in  society.  Even  the  intuitional  theory, 
whether  of  Price  or  Kant,  can  only  solve  certain  ethical  ques- 
tions by  resorting  to  the  intuition  of  design.  But  whenever 
this  theory  ekes  out  its  necessities  by  help  from  its  neighbor,  it 
exposes  itself  at  once  to  the  inquiry,  which  intuition  is,  after 
all,  the  fundamental  intuition,  —  the  category  of  intuitional  recti- 
tude, or  the  category  of  assumed  design. 


§§  80,  81.]  THE  EXTERNAL  ACTIONS.  205 

§  80.  The  resolution  of  moral  excellence  into  right  or  virtu- 
ous intention,  when  acted  out,  has  been  considered 
justly  as  the  noblest  feature  of  the  Christian  ethics  feature  of 
as  compared  with  every  other  system,  in  its  specu-   t^hristian 
lative  thoroughness   and   its  practical  value.     The 
value  of  this  single  principle  in  solving  the  problems  of  specula- 
tive morality,  and  again  in  meeting  the  difficulties  of  practical 
ethics,  becomes  more  and  more  conspicuous  the  more  the  stu- 
dent familiarizes  himself  with  the  failure,  even   of   Christian 
theologians  (to  say  nothing  of  anti-Christian  theologians),  to 
appreciate  and  apply  this  principle,  which  is  at  once  as  wide- 
reaching  as  it  is  easily  understood  and  readily  explained. 

Its  practical  value  is  equally  conspicuous,  the  instant  that 
we  acquaint  ourselves  with  the  many  perplexed  questions  of 
practical  morals  which  vex  the  souls  of  conscientious  men.  It 
is  one  of  the  many  examples  of  the  irony  of  history,  that  this 
principle,  at  once  so  spiritual,  so  profound,  and  so  practical, 
should  have  been  perverted  by  casuists  into  one  of  the  most 
degrading  and  demoralizing  maxims  of  individual  conduct  and 
social  life,  under  the  title  of  "  the  direction  of  the  intention." 
It  strikingly  exemplifies  the   adage,  Corruptio  optimi  pessima, 

§  81.  The  manifestation  of  right  intentions  by  speech,  ges- 
ture, and  action  also  admits  of  aesthetic  quality,  or   ^  ,^  ,, 

'  M  j7  iEsthetic 

the  quality  of  beauty,  in  ethical  character  and  con-  quality  in 
duct.     As  these  manifestations  please  or  displease  ®*  **** 
the   taste,  actions   are   said   to   be  morally  beautiful  or  ugly. 
Moral  beauty  and  deformity  are,  indeed,  sometimes  «     ,  ^^     ^ 
applied  to  the  internal  affections  as  such,  i.e.,  to  the  in  feeling 
voluntary  feelings  and  dispositions.     Inasmuch  as  *^     ^  ^c  . 
moral  excellence  introduces  order   and   symmetry  and  consis- 
tency into  the  inner  activities,  it  is  natural  to  conceive  of  it  as 
an  example  of  spiritual  beauty,  and  to  apply  to  virtue  and  vice 
the  conceptions  which  are  appropriate  to  beauty  and  deformity. 
The  intrinsic  beauty  of  virtue  and  virtuous  emotions  and  pur- 
poses, and  the  essential  deformity  of  vice  and  vicious  feelings, 


206  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL  SCIENCE.  [§  81. 

have  been  freely  emphasized  by  moralists  in  all  ages,  from  Plato 
The  beauty  of  ^own  to  Ruskin.  By  such  writers,  virtue  has  been 
virtue,  how      couceived  of  and  represented  as  resulting  from  the 

conceived  .  i  ./.,..        i 

and  de-  harmonious  workmg  of  the  spiritual  powers,  analo- 

scribed.  gowQ  to  dignity  and  elegance  of  feature,  form,  or 

action,  to  graceful  and  facile  movements  of  the  person  in  the 
dance,  to  the  harmonious  blending  of  sounds  in  music,  or  to 
the  easy  transitions  and  contrasts  of  colors.  These  analogies 
have  led  many  moralists  to  treat  the  moral  sensibility  as  kin- 
dred to,  if  not  a  form  of,  aesthetic  feeling.  The  advocates  of 
the  moral  sense,  as  Malebranche,  Shaftesbury,  Hutcheson, 
Hume,  and  Herbart,  very  naturally  accept  this  view,  more  or 
less  formally,  or  use  language  which  favors  or  implies  it. 

The  adherents  of  this  view  in  this  most  positive  form  will  be 
the  foremost  to  acknowledge  that  the  manifestations 

Appropriate  ° 

garb  of  of   virtue  and  vice  admit  the  relations   of  beauty 

^  '*'*®'  and  grace,  or  their  opposites ;   and  that  these  are 

founded  on  the  fitness  or  suitableness  of  words  or  deeds  to  the 
emotions  and  purposes  which  they  purport  to  express  or  to 
serve.  We  may  conceive  the  purest  benevolence,  the  sweetest 
affection,  the  tenderest  sympathy,  and  the  most  heroic  fortitude, 
through  some  defect  of  bodily  organization,  or  ab- 

Virtue  often  =  Jo' 

misrepre-  scncc  of  culturc,  to  cxprcss  thcmselvcs  in  tones  and 
sented.  gestures  and  words  and  actions  which  awaken  emo- 

tions that  are  altogether  the  opposite  of  those  which  the  feelings 
and  purposes  would  appropriately  occasion.  There  is  a  broad 
and  deep  chasm,  in  all  such  cases,  between  the  spiritual  emo- 
tions and  character  and  their  sensuous  manifestations.  Virtue  or 
moral  goodness,  in  all  such  cases,  wears  the  garb  of  its  opposite. 
Conversely,  vicious  and  selfish  emotions  and  character  may 
Ticecon.         drape  themselves  in  manners  that  are  literally  "the 

nectedwith  ijvery  of  heaven,  to  serve  the  Devil  in  ;  "  may  em- 
grace  and 

beauty  of  ploy  words  that  naturally  express  the  purest  love, 
manners.  ^^^  ^^^g  ^j^^^^  j^^  ^j^^jj.  geejj,ing  could  Only  be  dic- 
tated by  saintly  unselfishness.     Whether  ''  vice  itself  loses  half 


§  81.]  THE  EXTERNAL  ACTIONS.  207 

its  evil  by  losing  all  its  grossness,"  is  a  question  on  which  many 
differ.  Some  will  contend,  that,  because  cultured  "hypocrisy 
is  the  homage  which  vice  pays  to  virtue,"  therefore  it  is  no 
better  than  brutal  sensuality  and  fiendish  selfishness ;  while 
others  will  hold  as  earnestly,  and  even  passionately,  that  the 
sentiment  just  cited  is  not  only  superficial  but  demoralizing  in 
its  underlying  principle.  All  men,  however,  will  confess  that 
grace  and  beauty  of  speech  and  gesture  and  act  are  the  fitting 
garb  for  true  inward  excellence,  and  that  the  cultivation  of 
these  aesthetic  attractions  is  an  obligation  as  real  as  the  obliga- 
tion to  possess  the  soul  of  true  virtue  in  right  intentions  and 
a  virtuous  will.  The  neglect  to  manifest  our  virtuous  purposes 
by  fitting  acts,  the  careless  or  contemptuous  disesteem  of 
attractive  manners,  of  gracious  words  and  gentle  ways,  which 
are  not  only  practised,  but  justified,  by  men  and  even  women  who 
would  pass  for  eminent  philanthropists  or  super-eminent  saints, 
have  done  more  to  bring  saintliness  and  philanthropy  into  dis- 
credit than  the  open  defiance  of  moral  restraints  or  the  wilful 
profession  of  irreverence  and  unbelief.  Christianity  has  the 
rare  and  peculiar  merit  of  reconciling,  in  the  most  natural  way, 
the  sternest  severity  of  self-control  with  the  attractive  grace 
of  the  gentlest  manners.  While  in  theory  it  counts  the  outward 
man  as  little  or  nothing  in  comparison  with  the  inner  man  of 
the  heart,  it  tends  to  spiritualize  the  outward  man  by  the  silent 
operation  of  the  charity  that  "doth  not  behave  itself  unseemly." 
Its  command  in  respect  to  the  outer  actions  is  constant  and  un- 
compromising :  "  Whatsoever  things  are  true,  whatsoever  things 
are  honorable,  whatsoever  things  are  just,  whatsoever  things  are 
pure,  whatsoever  things  are  lovely,  whatsoever  things  are  of 
good  report :  if  there  be  any  virtue,  and  if  there  be  any  praise, 
tJiink  on  these  things/* 


208  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL  SCIENCE.  [§  82. 


CHAPTER  XII. 

DIVERSITY  OF  ETHICAL  DEFINITIONS  AND  THEORIES. 

§  82.  It  would  seem  at  first  as  though  no  concepts  ought  to 
The  acknowi-  ^^  ^^  easily  defined  as  ethical  concepts.  If,  as  we 
edged  diver-    havc  Contended,  the   most  important  ethical  rela- 

sity  of  defl-         .  i        ,       ,. 

nitions  and  tions  are  SO  clearly  discerned  by  all  mankind  who 
theories.  ^rc  willing  to  sec  them,  and  the  feelings  which  they 
excite  are  acknowledged  to  be  so  controlling,  it  would  be  natu- 
rally inferred,  that  no  conceptions  could  be  so  easily  explained 
as  ethical  conceptions,  and  that  in  respect  to  none  would  the 
theories  of  man  be  so  united  and  so  positive.  The  want  of 
clearness  which  prevails  in  respect  to  these  conceptions,  aad  the 
diversity  of  ethical  definitions  and  theories,  seem  to  require 
some  special  explanation.  We  have  already  emphasized  an 
important  difference  between  the  reality  of  a  fact  or  truth,  and 
the  scientific  definition  or  theory  which  explains  or  enforces  it. 
The  explanation  which  we  have  given  of  the  processes  by  which 
these  concepts  are  reached,  and  the  various  senses  in  which  they 
are  used,  may  have  prepared  us  to  understand  more  fully  why 
the  principal  ethical  terms  are  differently  defined  and  explained 
by  different  men,  and  by  the  same  men  at  different  times. 
We  notice  first,  that  the  terms  "  right  '*  and  "  wrong  "  admit 

wider  or  narrower  definitions,  according  as  they  are 
Applied  to  a  7  &  j 

wider  or  nar-  made  to  covcr  a  wider  or  narrower  field  of  relations, 
rower  field,  rjy^^^  j^  ^^^  peculiar  to  these  terms,  or  the  objects  for 
which  they  stand.    The  full  content  of  any  concept  would  cover 


§  82.]        ETHICAL  DEFINITIONS  AND   THE0BIE8.         209 

the  relations  of  the  object  to  which  it  pertains,  to  every  other 
object  to  which  these  relations  are  at  all  significant.  The 
breadth  of  the  definitions  which  we  give  to  any  must  depend 
upon  the  number  of  objects  with  which  it  is  compared.  It 
follows  that  one  of  very  many  definitions  of  the  same  object 
may  be  less  complete  than  the  others,  without  being  exclusive 
or  contradictory  of  them.  One  definition  may  seem  to  be 
inconsistent  or  unrelated  with  another,  for  the  simple  yet 
suflScient  reason,  that  in  words  or  in  thought  they  do  not  cover 
the  same  field,  or  for  the  reason  that  what  is  aflSrmed  in  one 
is  implied  in  the  other. 

In  the  definition  or  analysis  which  we  have  given  of  right 
and  wrong,  we  began  with  man  as  supposed  to  exist  jjight  and 
alone,  and  to  hold  relations  only  to  himself  ;  exclud-  wrong  may 

be  limited  to 

mg,  for  the  time  being,  any  relations  to  his  fellow-  a  solitary 
men.  We  began  with  this  conception  of  man  as  »n^i"d"aJ' 
furnishing  an  ethical  nucleus  or  germ,  —  viz.,  those  relations 
which  a  single  human  being  holds  to  himself  ;  which  germ  might 
grow  and  expand  by  natural  accretion  from  the  additional 
material  of  new  relationships  as  new  points  of  comparison 
should  present  themselves.  We  contended,  moreover,  that,  if 
an  individual  could  be  conceived  of  as  existing  alone,  he  would 
find  himself  discerning  the  more  important  relations,  and  ex- 
periencing the  conspicuous  emotions,  which  all  men  call  moral. 
Man  existing  alone  is  a  microcosm,  a  spiritual  organism, 
capable  of  voluntary  activities,  which  are  impelled  by  varied 
desires,  all  tending  to  good.  In  the  words  of  Butler,  he  has 
an  "inward  frame,"  "considered  as  a  system  or  constitution 
whose  several  parts  are  united,  not  by  a  physical  principle  of 
individuation,  but  by  the  respects  they  have  to  each  other,  the 
chief  of  which  is  the  subjection  which  the  appetites,  passions, 
and  particular  affections  have  to  the  one  supreme  principle  of 
reflection  or  conscience."  As  such  a  being,  he  must  judge  and 
test  them  by  the  standard  furnished  in  the  best  capacities  of 
his  nature  as  known  by  himself.     The  estimate  which  he  forms 


210  ELEMENTS  OF  MOBAL  SCIENCE.  [§  83. 

of  himself,  when  tried  by  this  standard,  he  must  follow  by  self- 
Bight  and  approval  or  disapproval.  It  is  obvious  that  right 
wrong  when    and  wrong  action,  generalized  and  defined  by  these 

limited  to  ,      .  '  ^  .  *^ 

these  reia-       relations,  must  be  conceived  as  the  voluntary  choice 
tions.  Qf  ^j^g  highest  good  known  to  paan,  followed  by  self- 

satisfaction  or  its  opposite. 

This  highest  subjective  good  would  no  sooner  be  recognized 
as  possible  and  desirable,  than  it  would  be  imposed  by  man 
upon  himself  as  a  law  for  his  future  respect  or  obedience,  and 
enforced  by  the  prospect  of  the  rewards  or  penalty  of  his  self- 
approval  or  self-reproach.  In  view  of  this  added  relation,  right 
and  wrong  are  still  further  defined  as  activities  which  involve 
the  feeling  of  obligation.  Moreover,  they  are  directly  or  cate- 
gorically commanded  and  prohibited,  the  processes  by  which 
they  are  imposed  being  so  simple  and  natural.  So  soon  as 
man's  highest  subjective  good  comes  into  view,  the  added  rela- 
tion of  adaptation  or  design  and  its  content  will  contribute  a 
new  element,  and  the  definition  will  be  so  far  enlarged.  Viewed 
under  this  new  relation,  the  inner  law  has  new  meaning,  and  is 
enforced  by  additional  sanctions  of  obligation.  But,  in  adding 
these  new  relations,  we  neither  deny  nor  exclude  any  of  the 
preceding.  One  rises  into  the  other  by  a  natural  accretion  and 
growth. 

§  83.  If  now  other  beings  than  man  himself  are  brought  into 
the  field,  and  if  his  own  highest  good  is  either 
heings  are  assumcd  or  known.  to  involve  their  highest  good, 
ntroduced.  ^^^^  right  action,  so  far  as  our  fellows  are  con- 
cerned, is  still  further  conceived  and  defined  as  the  voluntary 
action  which  tends  to  the  common  good.  This  may  be  deduced 
a  priori  by  inference  from  the  assumption  that  nature  would 
provide  for  the  harmony  of  the  two,  or  it  may  be  inferred  from 
the  conscious  experience  of  the  superior  quality  of  benevolent 
afifection  itself,  or  it  may  be  derived  from  both.  But  the  addi- 
tion of  this  new  element  in  no  way  excludes  those  already 
recognized  in  our  definition. 


§  83.]        ETHICAL  DEFINITIONS  AND   THEORIES.  211 

If  this  activity  is  again  inferred  to  be  willed  by  the  Supreme 
Reason  or  the  Supreme  Euler,  the  conception  of  ^^^^^  ^^ 
right  action  is  enlarged  and  exalted  by  its  relation  Supreme  is 
to  the  authority  or  will  of  God.     It  is  still  further 
defined  as  the  manifested  law  of  God,  who  is  assumed  to  be 
perfect  reason  and  perfect  goodness. 

We  repeat  the  remark  already  made,  that  none  of  these  rela- 
tions, as  they  succeed  each  other  by  natural  develop-  rp^g^^  groups 

ment,  necessarily  exclude  one  another.    They  simply  ot  relations 
1  .1  ,         .  .      /.    ii  .do  not  ex- 

enlarge  the  content  or  import  of   the  concepts  m  elude  one 

question,  as  one  after  another  is  recognized  as  true,  another, 
and  consequently  moves  the  feelings  and  impels  the  will.  This 
enlargement  of  import  is  the  result  (as  we  say  popularly)  of 
regarding  the  subject-matter  under  new  lights  or  from  new 
points  of  view.  Many  of  the  theories  of  morals  which  have 
been  taught  in  the  schools,  when  compared  in  their  elements  or 
traced  in  their  history,  will  be  found  in  no  sense  to  be  inconsis- 
tent one  with  another.  More  frequently  each  separate  theory 
rests  on  some  single  relation,  which  rather  presupposes  and  im- 
plies the  others,  than  excludes  and  repels  them.  Indeed,  what 
we  might  expect  we  find  to  be  true,  that  each  of  the  theories  of 
morals  which  has  had  its  abundant  following  and  its  earnest 
watcliword  represents  a  single  relation,  which  is  by  no  means 
exclusive  of  those  of  other  schools.  We  also  find  that  each  and 
all  together  must  take  its  place  in  any  complete  and  well- 
rounded  theory,  if  it  would  recognize  all  the  facts  and  relations 
which  the  truth  embodies. 

The  careful  student  of  the  various  speculative  theories  of 
morals  which  have  found  so  many  assailants  and  de-   Different 
fenders  will  not  be  surprised  to  find  that  each  repre-  theories  rep- 

„     ,         ,  1  .   ,  ,        resent  more 

sents  one  or  more  of  the  elements  which  go  to  make  ©r  fewer 
up  the  concepts  of  moral  good  and  evil  when  ideally  ^^^^^t^ons. 
completed.     Each  one  of   these  theories  ordinarily  represents 
but  one  side  or  aspect  of  the  truth.     That  only  is  the  true 
theory  which   provides   for  them   all.     Such  a  view  must  of 


212  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL  SCIENCE.  [§  84. 

necessity  exclude  the  dogma  that  the  relation  is  simple  and 
undefinable,  inasmuch  as  a  concept  that  is  simple  must  be 
incapable  of  analysis  or  growth.  It  would  seem,  that,  as  our 
concepts  in  any  domain  of  thought  ascend  in  dignity  and  im- 
portance, so  the  more  complicated  do  they  become  in  their 
internal  structure,  and  the  more  rich  in  their  spiritual  content. 

The  saying  of  Kant,  that  ''  nothing  can  possibly  be  conceived 
in  this  world,  or  even  out  of  it,  which  can  be  called  good  with- 
out qualification,  except  a  good  will,"  is  often  cited  as  sanction- 
ing the  position  that  the  concept  good-will,  or  moral  goodness, 
is  incapable  of  analysis  or  definition,  or,  in  other  words,  is  a 
simple  idea.  It  would  seem  to  be  sufficient,  in  reply,  to  call 
attention  to  the  fact,  that  the  concept  which  answers  to  any 
complex  term  cannot  itself  be  simple :  moreover,  the  concept 
good-will  denotes  a  conspicuous  property,  or  attainm.ent,  of  a 
being  with  a  highly  complex  nature.  Such  a  being,  it  would 
seem,  by  the  fact  that  he  occupies  a  higher  position  in  the  scale 
of  existence,  is  none  the  less,  but  the  more,  capable  of  answer- 
ing to  a  very  complex  conception,  such  as  must  be  recognized  at 
once  when  the  term  ''a  good  will  '*  is  defined. 

§  84.  Not  only  do  the  definitions  of  the  moral  concepts  differ, 
Bight  and  according  as  they  include  more  or  fewer  significant 
wrong  ap-       relations  ;  but  the  terms  which  designate  them  are 

plied  to  dif.  .  .  ^ 

ferent  sub-  applied  to  diverse  subjects-matter.  This  variety  of 
jects-matter.  application,  however,  involves  neither  inconsistency 
nor  contradiction  of  thought. 

Primarily  and  properly,  and  as  we  may  always  say  impliedly, 

the  concepts  of  right  and  wrong  are  affirmed  of  the 
onirtothe  voluntary  purposes^  and  of  these  alone.  Apart  from 
Toiuntary        the  voluntary  purpose  or  desire,  an  action  can  have 

no  moral  quality  whatever.  We  ought  also  to  add, 
that  in  the  last  analysis,  and  in  the  highest  sense,  right  and 
wrong  pertain  to  the  permanent  voluntary  state  which  we  call 
the  character.  Right  and  wrong  are  also  affirmed  of  the  dispo- 
sitions and  habits,  whether  these  are  affirmed  of  the  natural 


§  85.]        ETHICAL  DEFINITIONS  AND   THEORIES.  213 

tendencies  or  structure  which  precede  voluntary  activity,  or  of 
their  consequences  and  effects,  or  more  or  less  of  both.  Right 
and  wrong  are  also  affirmed  of  particular  intentions^  or  purposes 
to  perform  particular  external  actions.  In  courts  of  law,  and 
in  the  most  of  the  ethical  judgments  pronounced  by  man  upon 
man,  they  go  no  farther  than  such  intentions  ;  these  being  pre- 
sumed to  be  deliberate  and  rational.  Right  and  wrong  are  also 
affirmed  of  external  auctions  only,  and  very  frequently  with  no 
distinct  reference  to  the  intention  which  the  action  is  supposed 
to  manifest  or  execute,  but  always  with  the  assumption  that  the 
man  performed  the  action  with  intelligence  in  respect  to  its 
effect.  Right  and  wrong  are  also  applied  to  actions  that  carry 
no  intention  with  them,  and  hence  have  no  moral  quality :  and 
even  with  an  interchange  of  meaning,  so  that  an  external  action 
whicJi  is  morally  wrong  may  be  the  right  action,  i.e.,  the  action 
suitable  to  a  right  purpose ;  or,  one  that  is  right  morally,  i.e., 
in  its  purpose,  may  yet  be  the  wrong  action  in  outward  expres- 
sion and  effect. 

§  85.  We  distinguish  between  the  act  and  intention  more 
exactly  and  effectually,  by  availing  ourselves  of  the  ^^  ^^.  , 
terms  absolute  and  relative  rightness.  These  terms  relative 
may  not  be  the  most  felicitous,  but  they  serve  the  pur-  '  ^ 
pose  for  which  they  are  used.  Absolute  rightness,  as  thus  used, 
is  a  rightness  which  is  absolute,  or  perfect,  i.e.,  the  most  com- 
plete conceivable,  covering  every  relation.  It  is  affirmed  when 
the  intention  is  right,  and  the  action,  in  every  respect,  is  suitable 
to  such  right  intention.  If  a  man  is  animated  by  the  most  dis- 
interested purpose  to  benefit  his  fellow-men,  and  knows  exactly 
what  he  should  do  in  order  to  accomplish  this  purpose,  and  actu- 
ally does  all  this,  his  action  is  completely  and  consummately 
right,  his  activity  is  absolutely  right.  Relative  rightness,  on  the 
other  hand,  is  affirmed  with  respect  to  the  intention  only,  or  to 
the  external  action  only.  If  the  intention  only  is  right,  while 
the  action  is  more  or  less  unfitted  to  execute  or  express  this 
intention,  the  man  and  his  total  activity  are  right  relatively  to 


214  ELEMENTS   OF  MOBAL   SCIENCE.  [§  86. 

the  intention  only.  On  the  other  hand,  if  a  man  with  a  wrong 
purpose  performs  an  action  which  would  be  suitable  to  a  mor- 
ally perfect  intention,  his  action  —  i.e.,  his  word  or  deed  — 
would  be  relatively  right.  For  example,  a  man  might  intend  to 
give  another  what  he  supposed  would  act  as  a  poison,  but  which 
proves  to  be  a  needed  medicine.  An  action  may  be  relatively 
right  when  it  is  morally  wrong  ;  but  it  can  be  absolutely  right  only 
when  the  intention  and  the  act  are  harmonious,  that  is,  when  the 
intention  is  right,  and  the  action  is  also  right,  — i.e.,  when  it  is 
an  appropriate  expression  or  manifestation  of  the  intention  :  then 
the  action  is  conformed  to  the  ideal  in  all  conceivable  relations. 
§  86.  By  distinguishing  between  the  intention  and  the  action, 
we  are  prepared  to  determine  the  question  whether^ 

In  Trhat  sense 

and  in  what  sense,  morality  is  eternal  and  immuta-  is  morality 
ble.  In  answering  this  question,  it  is  important  that  J*®™**  *J*<* 
we  notice,  that  moral  relations  suppose  and  imply 
the  existence  of  moral  beings.  There  can  be  no  propriety  in 
affirming  such  relations  of  any  other.  It  were  as  absurd  to 
conceive  of  gravity  or  light  or  electricity  or  chemism  without 
matter,  or  geometrical  relations  without  space,  as  to  conceive  of 
right  and  wrong,  or  moral  obligation,  in  the  absence  of  beings 
endowed  with  those  natural  capacities  which  qualify  them  for 
moral  activity.  We  cannot  extend  our  conceptions  of  moral 
relations  beyond  the  range  of  existing  beings ;  i.e.,  persons  en- 
dowed with  capacities  for  moral  judgments  and  emotions.  On 
the  other  hand,  it  were  as  impossible  to  conceive  of  matter,  or 
mathematical  entities,  without  implying  the  necessity  and  uni- 
formity of  the  relations  which  each  involve,  as  to  conceive  of 
moral  relations  as  not  permanently  and  necessarily  implied  in 
the  existence  and  activity  of  moral  beings. 

The  question  whether  morality  is  eternal  and  immutable  is 
interchangeable  with  the  question  whether  moral  be-  ^^^    always 
ings,  one  or  more,  shall  continue  to  exist.     Morality  suppose 
must  always  signify  a  fixed  relationship  between  the 
volitions  and  acts  of  a  moral  being  and  his  capacities.     We 


§  86.]         ETHICAL  DEFINITIONS  AND    THEOBIES.  215 

aflSrm  with  confidence,  that,  whenever  and  wherever  a  moral 
person  exists,  his  moral  activities  must  have  constant  and 
unalterable  relations  to  these  capacities.  Whatever  be  the 
limitations  or  the  reach  of  his  intellect,  or  the  sensitiveness  or 
intensity  of  his  capacities  of  feeling,  his  judgments  respecting 
his  voluntary  activities  must  be  the  same,  and  also  the  emo- 
tions which  are  consequent  on  such  judgments.  The  relations 
themselves  are  constant ;  the  subjective  judgments  of  these 
relations  must  be  similar,  so  far  as  reflection  is  applied  to  them 
with  honest  attention  ;  and  the  results  must  be  uniform  and 
constant  in  both  thought  and  feeling. 

These  supposed  relations,  however,  pertain  to  the  internal 
economy  of  the  man,  i.e.,  to  his  intentions  and  voluntary  affec- 
tions and  purposes.  It  is  of  these,  and  of  these  only,  that  we 
confidently  assert  that  all  moral  beings  must  pronounce  the 
same  judgments.  The  actions  of  men,  on  the  other  hand,  are 
uniformly  right  and  wrong  so  far,  and  so  far  only,  as  in  all 
conceivable  circumstances  they  are  known  to  be  the  appropriate 
manifestations  and  effects  of  right  or  wrong  purposes. 

The  permanence  and  fixedness  of  moral  obligation  is  estab- 
lished so  soon  as  it  is  afl3rmed  of  the  inner  activi-  permanent 
ties.     All  that  we  need  say  of  these  actions  is,  that  and  fixed 

-  1  /.  .  -/.IT     relations  of 

so  far  as  any  classes  of  actions  are  uniiormly  and  the  inner 
invariably  required  by  right  intentions,  so  far  are   a^ti"**®** 
the  rules  of  external  action  fixed  and  constant,  —  as  fixed  and 
constant  as  are  the  requisitions  of  duty  upon  the  heart. 

To  concede  that  the  law  of  duty,  in  varying  circumstances, 
may  require  varying  external  actions,  does  in  no  sense  weaken 
the  authority  or  permanence  of  this  law,  as  it  is  applied  to  the 
inner  life.  Indeed,  we  cannot  justify  this  permanence  and 
authority,  unless  we  can  also  show  how  an  unvarying  law  may 
require  diverse  actions  as  circumstances  vary,  and  as  the  knowl- 
edge of  men  is  subject  to  change  in  respect  to  the  actual  im- 
port and  effect  of  their  conduct. 


216  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL  SCIENCE.  [§  87. 

§  87.  The  so-called  ethical  emotions  must  also  be  uniform 

in  their  character,  and  follow  the  ethical  juds^ments 
The  emotions 

equally  per-  in  the  experience  of  all  moral  beings.  Self-appro- 
manent  and  Nation  and  its  contrary,  obligation  to  and  against, 
and  what  is  called  the  feeling  of  merit  or  demerit, 
are  all  necessarily  connected  with  one  another  by  a  common 
necessity,  and  certain  to  emerge  in  the  experience  of  every 
moral  agent.  Their  presence  is  as  certain  and  sure  as  are  the 
phenomena  of  physical  agents  ;  and  their  laws  are  as  fixed 
and  eternal  as  those  which  prevail  in  the  solar  system.  Their 
energy  and  purity  and  relative  intensity  may  not  be  the  same 
in  every  individual.  These  depend  in  part  on  natural  tempera- 
ment, and  in  part  on  acquired  facility.  The  moral  feelings, 
other  things  being  equal,  share  with  the  other  emotions  in  in- 
tensity and  constancy,  and  in  every  other  natural  characteristic. 
The  commanding  sensibilities  which  we  recognize  as  ethical 
are  naturally  intense  or  moderate,  fervent  or  cool,  enthusiastic 
or  even,  in  harmony  with  the  prevailing  emotional  temperament. 
While  exercise  and  culture  add  to  their  relative  strength  and 
their  practical  supremacy,  neglect  and  open  resistance  weaken 
their  relative  energy.  They  retain  the  individual  type  imparted 
by  nature  or  transmitted  by  inheritance.  But  in  and  above 
them  all,  the  individual  will  is  supreme  in  its  capacity  to  direct 
and  control,  and  by  its  direction  and  control  to  form  and  fix, 
those  habits  which  are  the  priceless  rewards  of  moral  conflict 
and  the  strength  and  security  of  the  moral  and  spiritual  life. 


§  88.]  DEVELOPMENT  OF  THE  MORAL  NATURE.        217 


CHAPTER  XIII. 


THE  EDUCATION  AND  DEVELOPMENT  OF  THE  MORAL 
JUDGMENTS  AND  FEELINGS. 

§  88.  That  the  judgments  of  men  concerning  the  right  and 
wrong  of   particular   actions   are   very   largely  the 

Moral  jndg- 

products  of  their  circumstances  and  their  education,   ments  and 
is  too  obvious  to  admit  of  question.     That  their  f««»nf ««««"» 

^  to  be  depend- 

moral  emotions  are  similarly  influenced,  seems  equal-  ent  on  cir- 
ly  obvious.     How  far  and  in  what  way  these  judg-  *"™^  a^ces. 
ments  and  feelings  are  affected  by  each,  is  a  fruitful  theme  for 
inquiry  and  discussion.     This  inquiry  is  the  more  important, 
in  view  of  the  very  great  diversity  of  opinion  which  prevails,  in 
respect  to  the  part  which  these  influences  have  in  forming  and 
modifying   the   ethical   judgments  and   standards  of   diflerent 
communities  and  different  individuals.     Some  writers  are  ear- 
nest and  positive  in  asserting  that  the  ethical  judg-  Q„e.gi^g^ 
ments  and  feelings  are  entirely  independent  of  and  and  extrara- 
superior  to  any  and  all  extraneous  influences.     Con-  m*entsin\"wo 
science,  whether  it  be  individual  or  public,  in  the  directions, 
view  of  such,  is  an  infallible  oracle  ;  and,  whether  it  is  regarded 
as  reason  or  sentiment,   its'  judgments  and  feelings  are  pro- 
nounced to  be  alike  infallible  and  authoritative.     Others  repre- 
sent, that,  both  as  faculty  and  phenomena,  they  are  solely  the 
products  of  education  and  circumstances.    Both  these  judgments 
are  one-sided  and  extreme.     For  this  reason  it  is  -the  more 


218  ELEMENTS  OF  MOBAL  SCIENCE.         [§§  89, 90. 

important  accurately  to  state,  and  carefully  to  qualify,  these 
extreme  statements  in  both  directions,  if  we  would  do  justice 
to  the  truths  which  both  parties  exaggerate  and  misapply. 

§  89.  In  treating  the  subject,  we  shall  follow  two  lines  of  in- 
Two  lines  of  ^^^U'  (1)  We  shall  trace  that  development  of  the 
inquiry.  moral  judgments  and  feelings  which  is  determined 

by  the  general  laws  of  psychological  growth.  (2)  We  shall 
show  how  far  an  individual  or  a  community  may  be  affected 
in  ethical  opinion  and  feeling  by  education,  law,  religion,  and 
public  opinion.  These  two  lines  of  inquiry  cannot  be  entirely 
separated.  No  individual  exists  or  is  developed  independently 
of  his  fellow-men.  Into  what  seem  to  be  the  individual  experi- 
ences, there  must  enter  very  largely  the  influences  of  the  social 
atmosphere  in  which  he  has  been  trained.  The  individual  in 
his  turn  re-acts  against  or  with  all  these  circumstances  with 
Ethical  de-  greater  or  less  energy  and  effect.  There  is  a  natu- 
veiopment  of  ^al  order  of  psychological  development  and  progress 
nai  and  tiie  which  is  followed  in  the  history  of  every  individual 
commun  ty.  j.^^^  There  is  also  a  family  and  national  and  race 
psychology,  in  the  growth  of  what  is  called  the  conscience  of 
the  family,  the  nation,  and  the  race.  To  recognize  and  trace, 
in  a  general  way,  the  operation  of  these  common  conditions  of 
man's  individual  and  social  existence  in  their  effects  on  the 
varied  moral  phenomena  of  theory  and  conduct  which  are  so 
conspicuous  in  human  experience,  is  absolutely  necessary,  if 
we  would  form  a*  theory  of  morals  which  can  be  justified  by 
the  facts  of  observation  and  the  teachings  of  history.  We 
begin : 

§  90.   (1)    With   the   psychological   development   of    moral 

activity  in  the  history  of  the  individual  man.     We 
(1)  Ethical  ,/^  ^,  /     ,         -       .         , .  - 

growth  of       would  trace  the   natural  order  in  wnicn  our  con- 

the  indiTid-     gcious  psychological  experiences  are  developed,  till 

the  moral  consciousness  is  fully  established.     We 

suppose  no  special  guidance  or  stimulus  to  direct  or  quicken  the 

natural  development  of  the  moral  life. 


§90.]      DEVELOPMENT  OF  THE  MORAL  NATURE,         219 

The  infant  exercises,  earliest  of  all,  its  appetites  for  food  and 
drink,  for  warmth  and  sleep.  It  early  learns  to 
know  the  objects  which  will  gratify  these  affections,  lessons  of 
by  the  presence  of  one  or  more  of  which  it  is  im-  ^®  -contro . 
pelled  by  desire  towards  the  objects  which  will  satisfy  its  long- 
ings. It  subsequently  learns  that  it  cannot  have  these  objects 
without  effort,  and  very  soon  that  it  cannot  gratify  one 
desire  without  foregoing  another.  Thereupon  and  thereby  it 
learns  to  use  the  efforts  to  which  of  itself  it  might  be  disinclined, 
and  to  sacrifice  or  refuse  one  desire  and  one  action  in  order 
to  gratify  its  competitor.  In  this  way  it  learns  the  need  and 
importance  of  self-control.  By  degrees  it  learns  forecast  and 
adaptation  in  the  control  of  its  activities ;  and,  as  a  conse- 
quence, the  acts  and  habits  of  prudence  and  self-command  are 
begun  and  more  or  less  matured.  The  wishes  of  other  persons 
are  soon  brought  into  conflict  with  its  own.     The  child  early 

learns  that  others  are  stronger  than  himself ;   and  , 

"  Lessons  of 

also  that  certain  of  his  own  actions  are  permitted  subjection 
and  furthered,  while  others  are  repressed  and  pre-  *^  ***  ®'^* 
vented.    If  he  persists  in  acting  as  he  desires,  he  is  punished,  first 
with  corporal  pain,  and  then  by  expressed  displeasure.     The 
favoring  smile  and  the  interpreted  frown  of  nurse  or  parent  soon 
become  powerful  motives  to  incite  and  restrain.     The  "  Yes, 
yes,"  the  *'No,  no,'*  with  the  accompanying  smile  or  frown,  ex- 
presses what  the  child  learns  to  value  or  dread  most  keenly  ;  viz., 
the  favor  or  disfavor  of  his  fellows.     It  is  not  long  before  these 
consequences  of  evil  or  good  to  himself,  in  each  of  these  forms, 
become   closely  associated  with  the   actions   which   the   child 
desires  to  do:  the  desire  and  fear  of  this  good  and  evil  are 
recognized  as  motives  for  the  control  or  repression  of  impulses 
which  would  otherwise  be  allowed.     The  next  step  Distinction 
is  for  the  child  sharply  to  distinguish  the  two,  —  to  between  re- 

T    -  /.        ,  /.  sponsibility 

separate  the  favor  or  disfavor  of  others  from  any  to  others  and 
outward  consequences  to  himself  by  which  these  are  *®  <****'*  ^®^^' 
expressed.     That  man  is  strongly  moved  by  his  susceptibility 


220  ELEMENTS  OF  MOBAL  SCIENCE.  [§  90. 

to  the  good  or  ill  opinion  of  others,  cannot  be  doubted.  It  is 
equally  clear,  that,  as  the  powers  of  discrimination  and  reflec- 
tion are  matured,  and  the  sensibilities  become  more  acute,  he 
finds  in  this  force  a  law  to  regulate  not  only  his  acts  and  his 
manners,  but  his  feelings  also.  The  child  has  taken  an  early 
but  most  important  step  in  moral  culture,  when  he  learns  to 
adopt  fixed  ways  of  action  in  deference  to  the  wishes  of  his 
fellow-men.  The  first  step  in  the  moral  culture  of  a  child,  or 
an  infant  race,  says  Bagehot,  "  is  to  secrete  a  crust  of  cus- 
tom ;  "  that  is,  to  adjust  his  own  ways  of  acting  to  those  which 
he  finds  in  operation  among  those  with  whom  he  is  familiar. 

So  far  the  child  is  limited  to  those  relations  which  are  pru- 
The  develop,  dcntial  Only.  His  standard  is  taken  from  without, 
ment  and  rec-  jj^  ^j^g  conscQuences  wMch  affect  him  from  nature, 

ognition  of 

a  standard  socicty,  or  positive  law.  So  soon,  however,  as  he 
^  *  *"'  learns  to  look  within,  and  to  find  in  his  own  natural 

capacities  the  standard  of  judgment  and  the  source  of  authority, 
so  soon  also  as  he  applies  this  standard  to  his  volitions  or  inten- 
tions, he  rises  from  the  prudential  into  the  moral.  The  child 
does  not  consciously  ascend  into  this  higher  region  by  a  single 
bound.  Gleams  of  this  higher  knowledge  are  now  and  then 
intermingled  with  the  more  distinct  and  intelligent  recognition 
of  the  lower  relations.  The  higher  relations  are  not  so  much 
mingled  as  they  are  blended  with  these  lower,  giving  them 
greater  energy,  and  imparting  to  them  a  peculiar  quality.  The 
child  seems  to  himself  to  hear  and  respond  to  a  command  of 
force  or  favor  from  without,  while  yet  there  is  another  voice 
from  within  recognizing  the  reasonableness  and  the  excellence 
of  the  act  required,  and  a  response  of  feeling  and  motive 
superadded.  Nor  is  it  by  any  means  necessary  that  a  wide  range 
of  human  capacities  should  pass  in  review  before  the  eye  of 
reflection,  in  order  that  the  child  should  discern  and  accept  an 
inner  law,  —  the  law  written  on  the  heart.  It  is  only  necessary 
that  two  impulses  should  conflict,  in  order  that  this  law  should 
emerge  in  the  confessed  natural  superiority  of  one.     Least  of 


§  90.]      DEVELOPMENT  OF  THE  MORAL  NATVBE.         221 

all  is  it  required  that  the  law  should  be  discerned  as  of  universal 
application,  or  should  be  phrased  in  an  abstract  proposition,  or 
enforced  in  general  terms,  in  order  that  it  may  be  recognized 
and  honored.  Most  probably,  as  in  all  other  forms  of  reflective 
thinking,  the  attention  of  the  child  will  have  been  directed  and 
stimulated  by  some  sort  of  ethical  teaching  and  discipline,  rude 
or  refined,  pure  or  mixed.  Domestic  and  social  life,  in  their 
most  imperfect  and  unethical  forms,  appeal  more  or  less  fre- 
quently, and  with  more  or  less  directness,  to  the  law  which 
every  one  carries  within  himself.  Religion  also,  however  de- 
basing and  unethical  many  of  its  precepts  may  be,  always 
enjoins  some  duties  of  act  or  emotion  to  which  the  dormant 
moral  convictions  respond,  though  often  in  a  blind  and  undis- 
criminating  fashion. 

Last  of  all,  man  reaches  the  final  stage  in  the  development 
of  his  moral  consciousness  when  he  distinctly  recog- 

1       .         1  1  •  T  /.        1  •       Final  discoT- 

nizes  the  truth,  that  he  is  a  law  to  himself  ;  that,  m  ery  that  this 
his  natural  capacities,  he  finds  the  aim  and  standard  **^  *^  ^"  ^^ 

^  own  nature, 

for  his  voluntary  activities ;  and  that  according  to 

their  compliance  with  this  law,  or  their  failure,  he  must  approve 
or  condemn  himself.  This  is  the  ideal  generalization  towards 
which  all  other  ethical  axioms  or  principles  tend.  Very  few  in 
fact  reach  this  or  any  other  principle  in  an  abstract  or  scien- 
tific form.  So  soon,  however,  as  any  approximately  high  gener- 
alization is  attained ;  so  soon,  indeed,  as  any  single  principle 
or  system  of  principles  is  assented  to,  —  the  way  is  prepared  for 
a  system  of  practical  rules  which  is  derived  from  these  princi- 
ples with  more  or  less  logical  rigor  and  coherence.  Henceforth 
the  development  of  the-  moral  consciousness  of  the  individual 
proceeds  in  this  direction,  as  each  individual  forms  for  himself 
his  own  practical  code  of  duty  in  the  ways  already 

-    .  These  steps 

explained.  „ot  indepen- 

It  would  be  a  serious  mistake  to  infer  that  this  **®"*  <*^  *"■ 

strnction. 

development  can  take  place  on  the  part  of  any  indi- 
vidual independently  of  social  instruction  and  social  influences. 


222  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL  SCIENCE.  [§  90. 

It  is  as  true  of  ethical  knowledge  as  it  is  of  knowledge  of  any 
other  description,  that  the  larger  portion  of  that  which  finally 
shines  by  its  own  light,  and  might  perhaps  be  attained  by 
personal  reflection,  is  anticipated  by  the  instruction  of  others, 
and  comes  to  us  in  the  forms  of  propositions  of  truth  and 
duty,  which*  are  enforced  by  authority.  Ethical  truth,  so  far 
as  it  is  self-evident,  is  like  all  self-evident  truth  in  this  regard. 
In  some  respects,  however,  ethical  truth  is  peculiar  for  its 
possible  independence  and  autonomy.  Hence  our  second  in- 
quiry, which  is  of  special  interest  and  importance  ;  viz.,  — 

(2)  How  far  are  the  moral  judgments  of  men  dependent  on 
circumstances,  and  how  far  are  they  beyond  and  above  their 
control  ? 

This  inquiry  introduces  the  topic  of  the  next  chapter. 


§  91.]  SOCIAL  INFLUENCES,  223 


CHAPTER  XIV. 

SOCIAL  INFLUENCES  AS  HELPS  OR  HINDERANCES  IN 
MORALS. 

§  91.  The  most  conspicuous  of  these  influences  are,  educa- 
tion^ 'public  sentiment^  civil  government^  and  religion. 
These  comprehend  the  leading  accessory  influences  social 
by  which  the  moral  judgments  and  feelings  are  "^"®"^** 
modified,  by  help  or  hinderance,  in  the  family,  the  state,  the 
church,  and  the  community  of  men.  Of  these  the  first  three 
are  organized,  and  the  last  stands  for  mankind  united  by  those 
social  ties  which  are  more  or  less  informal  abd  transient. 
These  several  agencies  or  influences  are  alike  in  this,  that  they 
aid  or  hinder  the  motives  which  are  purely  and  properly  moral 
by  those  which  are  ea;^ra  but  not  necessarily  aw^i-moral.  These 
motives  have  this  one  feature  in  common,  that  they  are  addressed 
to  the  susceptibility  of  man  to  the  favor  or  disfavor  of  his 
fellows.  These  social  and  personal  forces  are  most  important 
factors  in  the  formation  of  the  moral  judgments,  tastes,  and 
character.  We  do  not  detract  in  the  least  from  the  importance 
of  the  responsibility  and  independence  of  the  individual,  when 
we  assert  that  they  very  largely  determine  the  moral  codes 
which  the  individual  man  receives  unconsciously,  and,  as  it  were, 
by  induction,  and  that  they  exert  a  powerful  influence  in  deter- 
mining the  direction  and  the  energy  of  the  moral  feelings. 
Every  family  has  its  own  moral  code  concernino^  the 

.  ,  ,.  .  The  family, 

major   and    the    mmor   moralities,  which  the  child 

accepts  with  little  questioning,  and  which  often  remains  to  the 


224  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL  SCIENCE.  [§  92. 

end  of  life,  with  little  change,  and  usually  with  an  inveterate 
and  tenacious  hold  of  the  associations.  The  emotional  atmos- 
phere of  every  household  is  in  a  greater  or  less  degree  a  life- 
giving  stimulant,  or  a  noxious  and  stifling  poison,  to  the  ethical 
impulses  of  the  individual.  The  school  repeats  similar  pro- 
Society,  lair,  cesses,  with  similar  effects.  Society,  by  its  ever- 
and  religion,  shifting  but  always  plastic  public  opinion  and  feel- 
ing, is  constantly  inspiring  and  moulding  the  rules  and  impulses 
of  action,  and  enforcing  them  by  its  subtile  and  penetrating 
presence.  The  laws  and  tribunals  of  every  community  are,  to 
not  a  few,  the  only  distinctly  recognized  standard  of  duty,  and 
the  only  enforcers  of  moral  authority  (§  41).  Religion  is  a 
constant  director  of  ethical  opinion,  and  minister  of  those  fears 
and  hopes  which  take  the  strongest  hold  of  man's  being,  as 
they  are  derived  from  another  life,  and  stimulate  the  conscience 
and  the  affections  to  the  intensest  activity.  All  these  forces 
are  subject  to  laws  of  progress  and  development,  as  also  to 
laws  of  retrogradation  and  degeneracy.  They  carry  the  indi- 
vidual with  them  backward  and  forward,  upward  and  down- 
ward, by  an  influence  which  is  always  powerful,  and  which 
often  seems  irresistible. 

§  92.  When  we  examine  these  extra-ethical  forces  more 
carefully,  we  find :  — 

(1)  They  do  not  originate,  nor  can  they  reverse  or  alter, 
those  moral  judgments  and  emotions  which  respect 

(1)  They  do  •*      °  ^ 

not  originate  the  fundamental  relations  of  duty.  These,  as  we 
the  ethiHii  i^ave  already  explained,  can  neither  be  imparted  by 
and  emo-  simple  instruction,  nor  enforced  by  bare  authority. 
Uons.  They  are  originated  by  and  within  the  soul  itself. 

They  are  discerned  directly  by  its  intuitive  insight.  They  are 
enforced  by  a  self -derived  and  self-imposed  authority  which  the 
man  can  share  with  no  other  being. 

No  more  can  they  create  or  destroy  the  strong  emotions  which 
necessarily  attend  these  intuitions.  These  emotions  spring  up 
within  the  soul  itself,  and  derive  the  exquisiteness  of  their  joy 


§93.]  SOCIAL  INFLUENCES.  225 

and  pain  from  the  fact  that  the  soul  deals  directly  and  solely 
with  itself. 

§  93.   (2)  The  intuitional  power  may,  however,  be  directed 
and  aided  by  instruction,  and  stimulated   by  disci- 
pline.    Induction  and  testimony  are  largely  depend-   and  quicken 

ent  on  the  observations  and   conclusions   of   older  ^^^^  intui- 
tional poorer, 
and  wiser  men.     The  purely  ethical  emotions  may 

be  energized  and  quickened  or  repressed  by  sympathy  or  hos- 
tility from  others. 

Instruction  may  aid  the  intuitive  power  enormously,  by 
declaring  what  it  will  find  to  be  true  if  it  looks  within,  and 
by  directing  its  untried  efforts  at  reflection.  The  celebrated 
Pascal,  in  his  early  youth,  discovered  or  constructed  for  him- 
self many  of  the  most  important  theorems  in  plane  geometry, 
without  either  book  or  instructor.  Doubtless  his  mastery  of 
these  theorems  would  have  been  greatly  furthered,  had  he  been 
guided  by  a  good  text-book,  which  would  have  gathered  and 
arranged  the  results  of  previous  generations.  And  yet  not  a 
single  one  of  these  theorems  can  be  taught  except  as  the  mind 
of  the  pQpil  is  directed  how  to  analyze  and  combine'  for  itself 
the  materials  which  suggest  the  self-evident  relations  that  reveal 
themselves  with  every  successive  step.  By  guidance  and  antici- 
pation, instruction  facilitates  the  progress  of  the  student.  In 
one  sense,  intuitive  moral  truths  may  be  and  are  taught,  both 
in  the  abstract  and  concrete,  in  principle  or  application,  when- 
ever parents,  teachers,  magistrates,  or  prophets  announce  in- 
tuitive moral  truths  in  distinct  and  forcible  words.  It  should 
ever  be  remembered,  however,  that  what  they  primarily  achieve 
is  to  declare  what  the  learner  will  find  to  be  true  if  he  will 
follow  their  guidance  in  looking  within  himself. 

These 

The  intuitional  power  may  also  be  stimulated  by  agencies 
discipline  ;  that  is,  its  efforts  at  reflection  may  be  ^^^^l*  f."* 

^  '  '  '^  discipline. 

excited  by  the  special  motives  which  these  social 

forces  apply.     We  do  not  ask,  at  this  point,  whether  motives 

of    this   class   are   lower  than    others   in   dignity   and  moral 


226  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL  SCIENCE.  [§  94. 

worth.  It  is  enough  that  we  know  that  they  are  necessary  and 
efficient  in  awakening  to  thought,  and  in  stimulating  to  the  dis- 
covery of  moral  truth,  —  even  of  that  truth  which  shines  with 
its  own  light,  and  warms  from  its  own  fires.  Those  truths  and 
rules  of  duty  which  are  not  intuitive,  but  are  gained  by  induc- 
tion, manifestly  dei^end  on  the  experience  and  testimony  of 
others.  In  this  field,  each  generation  can  make  acquisitions 
which  can  be  imparted  to  the  generation  which  follows.  Parents 
may  learn  moral  wisdom  for  their  children,  teachers  for  their 
pupils,  public  opinion  may  be  permanently  enlightened,  legisla- 
tion may  be  more  wise,  and  the  stream  of  tradition  be  more 
and  more  richly  freighted  with  valuable  lessons  gathered  from 
the  wisdom  of  the  past.  It  is  not  information  chiefly,  nor  testi- 
mony, that  comes  to  us  in  this  way  from  the  authority  of  others. 
It  is  the  self-evidencing  truth  of  many  opinions  of  one  man 
and  of  one  generation,  which  is  so  readily  understood  and 
accepted  by  other  men  and  other  generations.  The  reasonable- 
ness of  other  moral  truths  is  often  nearly  self-evidencing,  even 
though  the  truths  are  not  axiomatic.  Multitudes  of  inductions 
concerning  morals  and  manners  need  only  to  be  stated  in  lan- 
guage, and  gain  a  hearing,  in  order  to  command  unquestioning 
assent,  and  be  added  to  the  permanent  wisdom  of  the  next 
generation. 

§  94.   (3)  The  relation  of  extra-ethical  or  social  motives  to 
The  relation    those  which  are  purely  ethical  comes  next  in  order. 
®f  *^*J**"        These  two  classes  of  influences  may  conspire  together, 
ethical  mo-     or  they  may  be  sharply  antagonistic.     It  is  instruc- 
^®*'  tive  to  trace  the  agency  of  the  impulses  which  pro- 

ceed from  these  sources,  as  they  help  or  hinder  the  emotions 
that  are  excited  within  the  individual  alone.  The  parent 
may  command  the  child  to  obey  or  disobey  his  conscience, 
as  he  values  the  father's  favor,  or  dreads  his  displeasure. 
The  teacher  may  do  the  same.  So  may  the  magistrate.  The 
prophet  may  do  the  same  for  the  God  in  whose  name  he 
speaks. 


§95.] 


SOCIAL  INFLUENCES.  227 


(a)  The  feeling  of  self-approbation,  and  its  opposite,  in  their 
original   and   simple   forms   are   dependent,  as  we  ggi^.^ppro- 
have  seen,  on  the  soul  which  originates  and  feels  bationand 
them.     But  a  man  is  rarely  so   isolated  and  self-  proacu,  how 
suflacing,  either  in  youth  or  age,  that  he  does  not  modifled. 
interpret  his  own  self-approval  and  disapproval  as  also  indicat- 
ing the  approval  or  disapproval  of  his  fellow-men.     The  joy  of 
self- approval,  and  the  torments  of  remorse,  as  usually  felt  by  a 
member  of  a  well-ordered  community,  are  largely  the  reflex  of 
the  favor  or  displeasure  of  those  of  his  fellows  to  whom  the 
man  is  most  nearly  allied.     It  may  happen,  however,  not  un- 
frequently  it  does  happen,  that  the  acts  and  feelings  for  which 
a  man  approves  himself  the  most,  and  the  most  reasonably, 
bring  on  him  reproach  and  dishonor  from  other  men.     The 
patriots  and  martyrs  of  liberty  have  often  stood  in  the  pillory, 
and  been  forced  to  endure  the  jeers  and  contempt  of  multitudes 
for  the  convictions  which  have  subsequently  justified  themselves 
to  the  consciences  of  other  generations.     When  Sir  ^^^^  ^^^ 
Harry  Vane  was  dragged  on  a  sledge  up  Tower  Hill  scia  recti, 
for  his  execution,  the  few  "who  saw  liberty  and 
virtue  sitting  by  his  side  *'  were  silenced,  if  not  cowed  and 
shamed,  by  the  derisive  shouts  of  the  mob.     The  martyrs  and 
confessors   of   religion  have  often   suffered  more   from  "  the 
cruel  mockings  "  of  their  fellows  than  from  the  fires  in  which 
they  have  been  burned,  or  the  tortures  by  which  they  have  been 
torn.     When  our  personal  self-approval  conspires  with  that  of 
our  fellow-men,  it  is  not  easy  to  distinguish  the  one  joy  from 
the  other.    It  is  impossible  not  to  separate  the  two  when  they 
move  in  opposite  directions,  and  come  into  sharp  collision. 

§  95.  (b)  The  sense  of  obligation,  as  men  usually  know  it, 
represents  more  than  the  original  feeling  which  the  ^^^  ^^^^^  ^^ 
soul  creates  for  itself.     It  suggests  more  or  less  of  obligation 
personal  authority  from  without,  either  of  man  or  thorityofour 
God,  or  both  united,  enforcing  their  will  by  per-  *e»ows. 
sonal  favor  or  the  opposite.     These  several  elements  are  not 


228  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL   SCIENCE.  [§  95. 

always  distinguished.  The  child  does  not  always  separate  the 
ought  which  springs  up  and  is  eiiforced  from  within,  from  "  the 
categorical  imperative  "  of  the  parent's  command.  The  same 
is  true  of  the  man  who  recognizes  public  sentiment  as  his  law, 
or  the  will  of  the  magistrate,  or  the  will  of  the  Supreme.  When 
these  several  oughts  conspire  and  blend  together,  they  are  felt 
as  a  single  force  impelling  and  directing  to  one  goal.  But  when 
they  are  sundered,  and  come  into  collision,  they  fly  apart  in 
diverse  directions,  and  present  themselves  in  striking  contrast. 
When  the  child  is  suddenly  or  slowly  awakened  to  the  convic- 
tion that  there  is  little  or  no  moral  authority  in  the  command 
of  the  parent  whom  he  has  hitherto  venerated  or  feared  as  God ; 
when  the  man  is  forced  by  his  conscience  to  rebel  against  the 
tyranny  of  public  sentiment  or  of  despotic  lawlessness,  or  the 
prescriptions  of  an  immoral  religion, — then  the  ought  that  is 
supreme  within  is  brought  into  direct  conflict  with  the  oughts  that 
are  imposed  from  without.  Conflicts  between  these  opposing 
emotions  often  awaken  doubt,  inquiry,  and  painful  struggles. 
Even  though  the  decision  be  clear,  it  is  not  easy  to  shake  off 
sacred  and  long-cherished  associations.  Such  an  inward  con- 
flict always  has  the  elements  of  a  tragedy ;  and  the  struggle  is 
often  followed  by  an  actual  tragedy  within  the  soul  that  is 
shattered  by  the  efforts  which  are  incident  to  either  a  conquest 
or  defeat,  or  involves  a  tragedy  to  the  persons  or  interests  that 
reflect  these  conflicting  forces.  The  ancient  tragedy  found  am- 
ple material  for  its  pathos  in  the  sacred  supremacy  of  the  State 
or  the  Laws,  when  brought  into  collision  with  the  individual 
conscience  or  the  dictates  of  natural  affection.  The  death  of 
Socrates  in  real  life,  and  the  sacrilegious  daring  of  Antigone 
upon  the  stage,  are  two  examples.  All  human  history,  both 
domestic  and  social,  abounds  in  similar  pathetic  and  agonizing 
dramas. 

(c)  It  is  with  merit  and  demerit,  as  it  is  with  obligation  and 
self -approval.  Just  and  true  standards  may  be  accepted  and 
enforced  from  without,  which  conspire  with  those  which  spring 


§  96.]  SOCIAL  INFLUENCES.  229 

up  from  within  ;  or  those  which  are  factitious  and  false  may  be 
rejected  when  tested  by  those  which  the  individual  finds  within 
himself. 

§  96.  As  to  standards  of   moral  beauty,   and    the  feelings 
which  they  awaken,  it  is  notorious  that  at  one  time 
they  accord  with  nature  and  with  truth,  and  that  at   moral  beauty, 
another  they  grossly  offend  against  both.     There  are  ^®^^  ^^^  ^*"" 

able. 

good  and  bad  fashions  for  the  manners,  the  amuse- 
ments, the  worship,  the  laws,  and  the  conduct,  which  are  the 
outward  expression  of  the  inward  judgments  and  feelings  of 
both  individuals  and  communities.  Sometimes  the  outward  is 
unjust  and  untrue  to  the  inward,  and  lags  behind  it.  Some- 
times it  is  better  than  the  opinions  and  feelings  and  purposes, 
—  a  whited  sepulchre,  containing  the  decaying  relics  of  what 
was  once  a  breathing  and  living  body,  glowing  with  life  and 
beauty. 

As  we  review  these  auxiliary  or  extra-ethical  agencies,  two 
inquiries  are  suggested :  Why,  and  to  what  extent,  may  they  not 
teach  error  to  the  intellect  as  successfully  as  they  teach  the 
truth?  and.  Why  are  they  not  as  effective  in  moving  the  feel- 
ings for  evil  as  for  good?  To  these  questions,  the  answers  will 
be  brief,  inasmuch  as  they  have  in  effect  been  provided  for  in 
the  analysis  previously  given. 

(1)    The  fundamental  principles   of  duty  are  never  openly 
assailed  nor  formally  denied  by  any  one   of  these  xhefunda- 
auxiliary  agents.     No  teachings  or  influences  from  mental  prin- 
parents,  teachers,  lawgivers,  or  priests,  have  ever  openly 
ventured  to  assail  or  deny  the  axioms  of  morality  assaulted, 
when  formally  or  explicitly  expressed  in  language.     None,  in 
this  sense  of  the  word,  have  ever  put  "darkness  for  light,  or 
light  for  darkness;"  none   have   called  "good   evil,   or  evil 
good.'*     It  might  be  said,  indeed,  that  they  have  had  no  occa- 
sion to  consider  these  principles  in  the  abstract ;  it  being  re- 
served for  philosophers  only,  in  the  secret  recesses  of  abstract 
thought,  to  concern  themselves  with  the  truth  or  falsehood  of 


230  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL  SCIENCE.  [§  96. 

principles  of  this  kind.  On  the  other  hand,  it  is  clear  that 
these  truths  are  more  or  less  clearly  recognized,  and  assented 
to,  so  far  as  they  are  uniformly  appealed  to  in  justification  of 
acts  and  feelings  which  need  excuse  or  explanation.  Every 
command  of  parent,  teacher,  or  magistrate,  if  enforced  by  any 
reason,  is  enforced  by  a  reason  found  in  the  well-being  of  the 
individual  and  community.  Every  conflict  between  the  two  is 
justified  by  some  reference  to  the  common  good.  ''Virtue," 
says  Butler,  ' '  is  that  which  all  ages  and  all  countries  have 
made  profession  of  in  public ;  it  is  that  which  the  primary  and 
fundamental  laws  of  all  civil  institutions  over  the  face  of  the 
earth  make  it  their  business  and  endeavor  to  enforce  the  practice 
of  upon  mankind  ;  namely,  justice,  veracity,  and  regard  to  the 
common  good"  (Diss.,  II.), 

These  agents  cannot  teach  error  as  effectively  as  the  truth ; 
because  the  evidence  which  man  has  within  himself 

External 

agencies  can-  in  support  of  the  truth  is  such  as  no  assertion  can 
error^so  ^^^Y?  ^^^  ^^  sophistry  can  overthrow.     They  can 

cffectiyeiy       withdraw  the  attention  from  the  fundamental  intui- 
tions of  right  and  wrong ;  they  can  confound  true 
and  qualified  statements  of  these  truths  with  those  which  are 
extravagant  or  obscure,  and  so  bring  them  into  suspicion  or 
rejection :  but  they  can  never  bring  the  mind  which  conceives 
them  in  their  true  import  squarely  and  openly  to  deny  them. 
(2)  In  respect  to  tJie  moral  import  of  external  actions,  and 
consequently  in  respect  to  the  truth  and  authority 
tiaiiVlimt*^"  ^^  *^^  principles  and  rules  which  provide  for  such 
notwhoUy,      actious,  they  can  err  in  their  knowledge  of  facts, 
respect  to        ^^^  ^^  ^he  inductions  which  they  derive  from  facts 
external         ^s   actually  or  imperfectly   generalized.     For  both 
these  reasons,  they  may  teach  serious  error  in  respect 
to  many  very  important  duties.     In  respect  to  many  actions, 
we  find  that  the  import  is  too  clear  and  the  evidence  is  too  over- 
whelming to  make  it  possible  to  mislead  or  deceive  for  a  long 
time  in  continuance.    Comprehensive  and  far-reaching  mistakes 


§97.]  SOCIAL  INFLUENCES.  231 

in  respect  to  important  duties  may  prevail  in  large  communities 
for  a  long  time ;  but  the  errors  of  one  generation  are  often 
more  or  less  completely  outgrown  by  the  next,  even  if  they 
give  way  to  another  class  of  errors  as  serious  as  themselves. 
Interests  which  bias  the  judgment,  and  passions  which  blind 
it,  are  yet  changed  in  such  form  that  there  is  a  constant 
tendency  toward  the  abandonment  of  error,  if  not  to  the  accept- 
ance of  the  truth. 

(3)  The  second  question  was  :  Why  are  not  these  influences 
as  effective  for  evil  as  for  good  ?     Our  answer  is,   r^^v^^^  influ- 
Because  the  motives  from  without,  in  their  power  to  «*»«es  not  so 

effective  for 

affect  the  strongest  feelings  of  men,  cannot  be  com-  evil  as  for 
pared  with  those  motives  which  spring  up  from  ^^^^' 
within,  provided  the  two  are  brought  into  direct  collision.  The 
one  may  engross  the  attention  and  seem  to  command  the  assent ; 
they  may,  so  to  speak,  occupy  the  country ;  but  their  power  is 
that  of  a  confessed  usurper,  against  whom  his  oppressed  and 
lawful  rival  is  ever  ready  to  rise  in  revolt.  There  is  no  way  to 
repress  or  silence  the  voice  of  conscience  in  respect  to  funda- 
mental truths,  unless  the  attention  is  diverted,  or  the  sensi- 
bilities are  deadened.  Man  must  have  his  own  self- approval,  to 
be  truly  self-satisfied.  No  enjoyment  from  without,  no  favor 
of  all  the  universe  besides,  can  compensate  for  the  loss  of  this 
good,  involving  as  it  must  the  worst  of  all  sufferings,  his  own 
self-condemnation. 

§  97.  This  analysis  enables  us  more  satisfactorily  to  explain 
how  and  why  it  is  that  what  are  called  the  standards  „, 

•^  Tliese  princi- 

of  morality  are  so  different  in  different  communities  pies  explain 
and  at  different  times.     So  far  as  the  intentions  or  ***®  ^^^^^ll. 

ences  in  the 

purposes  which  should  control  the  character  are  standards  of 
concerned,  it  is  impossible  that  any  man  or  any  com-  ™**'*  ^* 
munity  which  earnestly  reflects,  and  is  trained  to  the  capacity 
to  generalize,  should  not  adopt  the  same  standard.  As  we 
have  said  already,  it  would  be  impossible  to  lead  any  man  or 
any   community  to   accept  any  formulated   principle  or  any 


232  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL   SCIENCE,  [§  98. 

positive  law  which  contradicts  the  ultimate  axioms  of  morality 
in  respect  to  the  fundamental  relations  of  duty.  Moreover,  all 
defective  or  vicious  teachings  of  special  duties  give  an  implied 
recognition  or  a  tacit  homage  to  these  fundamental  principles. 
Whenever  a  practice  that  is  known  to  be  morally  wrong  is 
palliated  or  defended,  it  is  always  in  the  name  of  the  individual 
or  general  good,  thereby  implying  that  to  aim  at  the  general 
good  is  man's  dignity  and  duty.  The  grossest  vices  and  the 
most  atrocious  acts  of  cruelty  are  uniformly  justified  or  excused 
by  a  reference  to  some  end  which  is  assumed  to  be  worthy, 
obligatory,  and  right. 

But  all  men  do  not  reflect,  either  upon  the  principles  of  duty 
in  the  abstract,  or  the  most  obvious  inferences  from  them  in  the 
way  of  application.  Indolence  and  passion,  and  a  deference  to 
custom  and  tradition,  cause  the  intellect  to  rust  through  inaction, 
or  to  be  perverted  by  misdirection.  The  social  influences  so 
often  named  by  us  take  a  strong  hold  of  each  new  mind  that 
comes  under  their  power,  and  mould  him  after  the  will  of  the 
leaders  of  opinion.  These  rarely  rebuke  the  ethical  motives 
which  are  friendly  to  their  aims  of  wealth  and  pre-eminence. 
Under  the  slow  operations  of  the  lessons  of  experience,  with 
now  and  then  an  active  and  energetic  impulse  from  an  occasional 
reformer,  who  is  more  sagacious  and  single-hearted  than  his 
generation,  the  special  standard  of  an  age  or  a  community,  if  it 
is  raised  at  all,  will  be  raised  but  slowly. 

§  98.  These  thoughts  suggest  the  further  inquiry.  How  and 
by  what  agencies  can  the  standard  of  morality  be  improved  in 
any  considerable  degree  ? 

The  first  condition  is  education  in  the  double  form  of  instruc- 
Conditionsof  *^^^  ^^^  discipline.  To  lead  an  individual  or  a 
Improvement   community   to   accept    an    improved    standard    of 

in  ethical  .       i  .    i        i        i  ■,    •, 

standards:  morality,  each  man  must  think  clearly  and  hon- 
Education.  estly,  and  confide  in  the  testimony  and  observation 
of  those  who  are  best  informed  in  respect  to  the  operations  of 
conduct  and  character.     If  men  are  unwilling  of  themselves 


§98.]  SOCIAL  INFLUENCES,  233 

to  attend  to  the  self-evident  truths  which  they  would  find  if  they 
would  seek  them,  they  may  be  impelled  by  the  force  of  mere 
authority,  i.e.,  by  extra-ethical  influences.  Moral  truth  may 
be  enforced  upon  their  respect  and.  obedience  by  an  efficient 
and  high-toned  public  sentiment ;  by  a  legislation  that  is  wisely 
conceived  and  impartially  administered  ;  and,  by  what  is  more 
efficient  than  all  else,  a  religion  that  supplies  man's  moral 
needs,  and  is  true  in  fact  and  history.  These  are  the  agencies 
by  which  the  moral  standard  of  a  generation  or  a  community 
can  be  improved.^ 

The  theory  of  morals  can  never,  in  fact,  be  elevated  unless  the 
lives  and  characters  of  men  are  also  reformed.     The   „  » 

Beformation 

reasons  are  obvious.  Men  will  not  study  the  theory  of  character 
of  morals  with  sustained  attention  unless  they  feel  a  *" 
strong  interest  in  ethical  truths,  and  a  practical  sympathy  with 
them.  If  its  truths,  so  far  as  they  are  known  or  discovered, 
only  contradict  and  reprove  their  actions  and  their  characters, 
they  will  dislike  to  think  of  them.  Intellectual  progress  in  the 
moral  standards  of  individuals  and  communities  is  at  once  the 
cause  and  the  effect  of  an  improvement  in  their  practical 
morality.  It  is  true,  after  a  high  standard  has  once  been  at- 
tained, it  may  survive  for  a  time  the  degeneracy  of  a  succeeding 
generation.  It  is  possible,  and  even  probable,  that  such  a  gen- 
eration may  excuse  or  palliate  its  own  vices  by  the  reverence 
which  it  pays  to  the  stricter  theories  of  the  past,  or  by  a  merely 
speculative  interest  in  the  reasonings  and  conclusions  which 
these  include.  In  this  sense  it  is  true  that  men  compound  for 
the  liberty  to  dishonor  the  teachings  of  the  prophets  of  a  pre- 
ceding generation  by  building  and  decorating  their  sepulchres. 
Ordinarily,  however,  men  do  not  care  to  occupy  their  intellects 
with  truths  in  which  they  feel  no  positive  interest,  much  less  if 
these  truths  point  to  duties  and  sacrifices  which  are  positively 


1  Cf.  Principal  J.  C.  Shairp,  The  Moral  Dynamic;  Studies  in  Poetry  and 
Philosophy :  Edinburgh,  1868. 


234  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL  SCIENCE.  [§  99. 

distasteful ;  and  therefore  it  usually  happens  that  a  practical 
degeneracy  makes  itself  manifest  in  an  entire  neglect  of  the 
theory  of  morals.  This  neglect  is  manifested  in  a  forgetfulness 
of  its  fundamental  principles,  or  a  sophistical  and  shallow  ex- 
planation of  their  import  and  authority,  or  a  feeble  enforcement 
of  the  practical  rules  of  living  and  action. 

§  99.  Such  a  degeneracy  of  ethical  science,  and  corruption  of 

ethical  life,  are  ordinarily  removed   by  an  earnest 

of  speculative  work  of  reformation.     The  possibility  of  a  reforma- 

and  practical  tJQji  in  ethical  speculation  and  practice  can  be  under- 

morals. 

stood  by  a  reference  to  those  personal  influences  of 
men  on  one  another  which  have  been  enumerated.  We  need 
not  inquire  what  agencies  awaken  the  reformer  to  profounder 
convictions  of  moral  truth,  and  a  clearer  discernment  of  moral 
rules.  We  must  suppose  that  he  has  both,  coupled  with  that 
ardor  and  enthusiasm  which  they  are  fitted  to  inspire.  Whether 
this  ever  happens  except  under  some  kind  of  supernatural  in- 
citement, we  need  not  determine.  It  is  enough  that  we  are 
assured  that  individual  men  now  and  then  attain  the  force  and 
fire  which  give  them  personal  power  over  their  fellows.  The 
„,    .  grounds  or  reasons  for  these  stronger  convictions  are 

The  instni-       °  ° 

mentalities  rational ;  the  impulses  which  they  feel  are  the  kin- 
are  rational.    ^jj|jjg  gj.gg  ^.jjg^^  hsive  long  been  ready  to  flash  into  a 

glowing  flame.  Their  power  to  affect  others  is  also  eminently 
natural.  Let  one  man  believe  and  feel  strongly  on  moral 
themes,  and  he  becomes  at  once  a  power  with  his  fellow-men. 
The  assertion  of  convictions  by  one  earnest  man  evokes  re- 
sponsive convictions  from  all  who  hear  his  words.  The  better 
feelings  are  aroused  by  sympathy  with  any  zealous  and  earnest 
soul.  Common  convictions  and  common  feelings,  when  fused 
into  a  common  conscience,  create  a  powerful  social  force.  If 
the  conscience  of  an  individual  is  the  most  powerful  individual 
agency  that  man  knows  of,  the  assenting  and  consenting  con- 
science of  a  company  of  men  is  a  resistless  power,  now  a  rush- 
ing stream,  and  then  a  sweeping  torrent.     As  soon  as  a  small 


§99.]  SOCIAL  INFLUENCES.  235 

community  of  animated  reformers  is  constituted,  it  begins  to 
teach  others  with  a  sort  of  social  authority,  provided  always 
it  speaks  to  the  consenting  convictions  of  those  to  whom  it 
appeals.  It  creates  and  enforces  a  public  sentiment  of  its  own, 
which  penetrates  and  overmasters  the  public  sentiment  by  which 
it  is  surrounded.  If  the  reformers  are  moved  by  the  inspiration 
of  God,  they  employ  an  appeal  to  a  more  powerful  agency, 
which  is  both  individual  and  social.  * 

The  effects  are  often  surprising  in  power,  rapidity,  and  per- 
manence.    Moral   and   religious  convictions  which  „.     ,,  ^ 

°  The  effects 

had  been  dormant  for  generations  suddenly  spring  are  often 
into  life.     Truths  that  had  been  suppressed  in  or  ^"'p^*^*"^' 
under  an  unrighteous  life  assert  at  once  their  regal  authority. 
Practices  which  had  been  sanctioned  by  the  interests  and  made 
venerable  by  the   traditions   of  many  generations,  which  had 
been  justified  by  precedent  and  made  sacred  by  religion,  are  all 
at  once  discovered  to  be  venerable  impostures   or  outrageous 
wrongs.     It  is  only  after  repeated  and  hard-fought  battles,  that 
they  are  reluctantly  abandoned.     Rules  of  action  that  had  never 
been  suspected  of  being  unsound  are  confessed  to  be  false  in 
theory  and  pernicious  in  their  working.    Profounder  principles  of 
duty  are  accepted,  or  wiser  and  more  enlightened  applications 
of  principles  already  received  are  readily  made.     Ancient  and 
modern  history  abound  in  the  records  of  reforms  of  this  sort. 
They  are  not  always  brief  in  their  duration.     Not  ,^^    ^^^ 
infrequently  a  steady  and  long-continued  impulse  of  also  perma- 
ethical  'progress  has  followed,  as  the  result  of  which 
the  manners  and  the  morals  of  great  communities  have  been 
improved  in  theory  and   in   conduct,  in   every  department  of 
human  life.     Legislation,  commerce,  education,  domestic  life, 
social  intercourse,  festive  habits,  the  use  of  food,  drink,  cloth- 
ing, and  amusements,  all  have  felt  the  influence  of  its  uplifting 
and  on-moving  tide. 

Inasmuch  as   every  form  of  public  and  private  activity  is 
embraced  within  the  domain   of  duty,  in  proportion  as  these 


236  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL  SCIENCE.  [§  98. 

relations  are  studied  in  an  enlightened  spirit,  there  is  oppor- 
tunity to  improve  the  rules  of  duty  more  perfectly  in  all  their 
applications. 

The  zeal  of   reformers  is  often   excessive.     Their  practical 

deductions  are  often  derived  from  insufficient  data. 

reformers       They  are  not  infrequently  ignorant  of  many  of  the 

is  often  facts  which  are  material  to   a  correct   conclusion, 

excesslre. 

Their  dogmatism  is  often  offensive  in  proportion  to 

its  positiveness  ;  and  their  denunciations  in  the  name  of  liberty, 

temperance,  and  religion  are  kindled  by  any  thing  rather  than 

a  truly  prophetic  fire.     So  long,  however,  as  men  shall  fail  to 

honor  the  axioms  of  morality  with  the  fervent  faith  which  their 

self-evident  truth  is  fitted  to  inspire,  and  to  derive  from  them 

their  just  applications,  so  long  will  there  be  a  call  for  the  work 

of  the  reformer ;  and  so  long  as  man  has  the  capacity  to  be 

moved  and  inspired  to  faith  in  moral  truth   by  personal  and 

social  enthusiasm,  so  long  will  there  be  promise  of  success. 


99.]  THE  LAW  OF  HONOB.  237 


CHAPTER  XV. 

THE  LAW  OF  HONOR. 

§  100.  Our  analysis  of  •  the  relations  of  social  influences  to 
the  moral  convictions  and  feelings  explains  the  so-called  la^v*  of 
honor,  and  its  relations  to  the  law  of  duty. 

The  law  of  honor  is  a  product  of  society.  Its  rules  of  action 
and  its  impulses  of  feeling  are  derived  from  so-  The  product 
ciety  ;  its  sanctions  of  duty  are  enforced  by  society,  of  society. 
Hence  its  imperfections  and  its  evils.  The  society  which 
creates  and  enforces  this  law  is,  however,  composed  of  moral 
beings,  who  cannot  be  entirely  forgetful  or  careless  of  moral  re- 
lations, and  cannot  but  often  recognize  and  respect  the  sanctions 
of  conscience.  Hence  its  dignity,  its  attractiveness,  and  its 
authority. 

The  very  term  "honor**  presupposes  the  existence  of  society. 
Honor  is  the  favorable  regard,  sympathy,  or  esteem 
felt  and  expressed  by  one  or  many  for  the  acts  or  social  in  its 
character  of  a  person,  or  the  kindly  and  respectful  *™^**'  * 
estimate  in  which  a  man  is  held  by  his  fellows  in  an  organized 
and  permanent  community.     As  soon  as  this  is  made  the  mo- 
tive or  direction  of  the  conduct,  we  have  the  beginning  or  germ 
of  honor  acting  as  a  law.     Objectively,  this  law  is  imposed  by 
society.     Subjectively,  it  addresses  the  susceptibility  and  desire 
of  man  for  the  good  opinion  of  his  fellow-men. 

So  far  the  law  of  honor  would  seem  to  be  the  same  with  what 


238  ELEMENTS  OF  MOBAL   SCIENCE*  [§  100. 

Locke  calls  the  law  of  opinion  {Essay,  book  ii.,  chap.  28, 
§§  10,  11).  What  is  technically  called  the  law  of 
limited  and  honor,  howevcr,  supposes  a  special  and  limited  corn- 
special  com.  munity,  more  or  less  definitely  organized  for  specific 
ends,  and  giving  or  withdrawing  its  favor  only  on 
conditions  well  understood.  In  every  society  of  this  sort,  this 
law  is  framed  with  reference  to  the  purposes  for  which  the 
society  exists,  and  the  conditions  which  are  acknowledged  to  be 
essential  to  the  attainment  of  these  ends.  It  should  not  be  at 
all  surprising,  —  it  follows  as  a  necessary  consequence, — that  the 
law  of  honor  is  different  in  each  of  these  societies.  There  is 
one  law  of  honor  for  lawyers,  another  for  physicians,  another 
for  clergymen,  another  for  merchants,  another  for  artists,  an- 
other for  gamblers,  another  for  thieves,  another  for  gentlemen 
justly  conceived,  another  for  gentlemen  falsely  so  called. 

§  101.  In  every  case,  the  law  rests  upon  and  grows  out  of  an 
implied  contract  or  mutual  understanding  between 

Bests  upon  ^  " 

an  implied  the  parties  who  compose  the  society,  that,  as  long 
contract.  ^  ^^^Qy  comply  with  the  conditions  which  are  pre- 
scribed by  the  community,  they  shall  be  entitled  to  certain 
privileges.  To  all  these  privileges,  every  member  of  the  society 
has  an  equal  claim  ;  and,  so  far  as  these  are  concerned,  all  are 
on  a  footing  of  equality. 

This  law  is  usually  unwritten,  for  the  reason  that  it  is  suffi- 
ciently determined  and  defined  by  the  ends  for  which 

The  1a^  more  ,  .  .  ,     ,  ,.^.  ,     ^ 

or  less  defl.  each  socicty  exists,  and  the  means  or  conditions  that 
nite,  though    ^^e  acknowledged  to  be  necessary  for  its  realization. 

nnvrritten.  ^ 

For  example :  lawyers  are,  by  the  nature  of  their- 
profession,  constantly  brought  into  open  collision  with  one  an- 
other ;  as  they  are  bound  to  assert  and  defend  the  cause  of  their 
Example  of  clients  with  every  suitable  appliance  and  the  utmost 
lawyers.  Qf   ingenuity  and   eloquence.     In  a  certain  sense, 

they  must  make  the  cause  of  their  clients  their  own.  In  the 
conduct  of  their  cases,  they  are  exposed  to  potent  temptations 
to  overstep  the  limits  of  reason  and  courtesy.     Heuce  certam 


§  102.J  THE  LAW  OF  HONOR.  239 

rules  are  carefully  framed  and  rigidly  enforced  in  respect  to  the 
treatment  of  papers,  of  witnesses  and  the  opposing  counsel,  and 
also  in  respect  to  the  freedom  of  language  which  may  be  allowed. 
The  moral  reach  of  these  rules  may  be  very  limited  :  and  yet,  so 
far  as  they  go,  they  have  an  ethical  import ;  they  tend  to  neces- 
sary or  most  desirable  results,  and  for  this  reason  are  readily 
accepted  and  rigidly  enforced.  An  advocate  who  grossly  vio- 
lates them  is  punished  by  the  judge  for  ''  contempt  of  court," 
or  "thrown  over  the  bar"  for  unprofessional  conduct.  Simi- 
larly, among  physicians,  conduct  which  is  unprofes-  q^  physi- 

sional   has   come   to  be  distinctly  recognized,  and  clans,  mer- 
chants, 
more    or   less    rigidly    punished,    not    infrequently  thieves,  and 

under  a  definite  and  written   code.     In   trade  and  gamblers, 
commerce,  in  banking  and  brokerage,  certain  methods  of  pro- 
cedure must  be  insisted  on  as  the  indispensable  conditions  of 
the  convenient,  if  not  of  the  possible,  transaction  of  business ; 
and  these  are  distinctly  recognized  and  rigidly  enforced  as  the 
rules  of  the  guild.     Among  thieves  and  gamblers,  the  rules  of 
the  craft  and  of  play  are  accepted  and  exacted  as  tests  of  that 
conduct  which  is  counted  honorable  in  such  a  fraternity.    Among 
gentlemen,  especially  when  "  this  grand  old  English  Among 
word"  is  used  in  its  higher  signification,  the  law  of  gentlemen, 
honor  respects   far  higher  ends,   and   imposes   rules   of   pro- 
founder  significance.     The  three  cardinal  virtues  which  it  rec- 
ognizes and  makes  the  most  of  are  truth,  courage,  and  courtesy, 
in  speech,  manners,  and  conduct. 

§  102.  The  law  of  honor  does  not  profess  to  control  the  mo- 
tives or  the  character.     It  necessarily  limits  itself  ^ 

•^  Does  not 

to  the  manners,  the  words,  and  the  deeds  ;  albeit  it  respect  the 
sometimes  regulates  these  with  rigorous  preciseness,  "***  ^®** 
and  judges  them  with  stern  severity.  A  man  may  be  false  at 
heart,  and  yet  rigidly  hold  to  his  word  among  gentlemen.  He 
may  be  intensely  coarse  and  selfish,  and  yet,  in  his  manners, 
may  scrupulously  observe  the  rules  of  courtesy.  He  may  be 
cowardly  in  feeling,  and  yet  not  dare  to  desert  his  post  when 


240  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL  SCIENCE.  [§  102. 

in  danger.     And  yet,  if  he  does  all  that  the  law  of  honor  pre- 
scribes, he  is  entitled  to  all  the  privileges  of  a  gentleman. 
.    Special  conditions  may  be  required  for  admission  to  any  and 
all  of  these  societies,  pre-eminently  to  that  of  gen-   „ 

'  ^  "^  °  Conditions 

tlemeh,  —  as  wealth  or  social  position,  or  that  refine-  and  priri- 
ment  which  comes  of   culture  or  family ;  but  once    ®^®*' 
admitted,  no  matter  on  what  conditions,  the  rule  holds  good, 
that  all  the  members  of  this  favored  society  are  peers  so  long 
as  they  observe  the  laws  which  are  recognized  by  the  fraternity 
to  which  they  belong. 

In  asserting  that  this  law  concerns  itself  only  with  the  ex- 
ternal actions,  we  do  not  overlook  the  fact  that  the 
to  the  feel-*  words  "  honor  "  and  ''honorable'*  are  very  often 
ingsand  ^nd  very  significantly  applied  to  the  feelings  and 
purposes.  They  are  so  because  in  such  cases  the 
feelings  are  interpreted  by  the  acts.  They  are  conceived  and 
described  as  the  impulses  which  would  issue  in  honorable  words, 
manners,  and  deeds.  In  such  cases,  the  nice  sense  of  honor 
reaches  no  farther  than  a  sensitive  estimate  of  what  is  honor- 
able in  action,  and  a  constant  purpose  to  exemplify  it.  Or,  as 
is  often  true,  the  law  of  honor  is  recognized  as  the  law  of  duty ; 
and  honorable  acts  and  feelings  are  interpreted  to  be  such  as  are 
moralized  and  enforced  by  the  conscience.  This  fact  explains 
why  the  law  of  honor  in  its  higher  forms  is  so  excellent  and 
noble  in  its  influence.  To  many  it  is  a  discipline  to  virtue,  the 
decorated  vestibule  which  attracts  to  the  severer  court  within, 
in  which  virtue  dwells  and  receives  the  supreme  and  undivided 
homage  of  those  who  have  been  schooled  to  her  more  spiritual 
service. 

It  is  in  this  sense  that  it  is  described  in  the  well-known 

lines :  — 

"  Say,  what  is  honor  ?    'Tis  the  finest  sense 

Of  justice  which  the  human  mind  can  frame, 

Intent  each  lurking  frailty  to  disclaim, 

And  guard  the  way  of  life  from  all  ojffence 

Suffered  or  done." 

Wordsworth. 


§103.]  TUE  LAW  OF  HONOB.  241 

§  103.  The  defects  of  the  law  of  honor,  taken  as  the  only  rule 
of  life,  are  manifest.     First  of  all,  even  in  its  better 
forms,   it   respects   only  a  part  of   man's   nature.   Respects  a* 
Even  when  it  is  most  exacting  and  spiritual  in  its  p**"*  ^^  ™*"'8 

nature. 

demands,  its  requirements  neither  penetrate  so  wide- 
ly nor  so  deeply  as  does  the  law  of  duty.  Hence,  as  a  rule  of 
feeling  and  action,  it  is  necessarily  imperfect  and  incomplete. 
Even  at  its  best,  it  is  but  a  part  of  the  feelings  and  the  actions 
which  it  would  regulate.  Whatever  it  may  seem  to  gain  in 
force  and  energy  by  its  narrowness  and  concentration,  it  loses 
in  respect  to  the  depth  and  richness  of  the  principles  which  it 
fails  to  recognize. 

Not  unfrequently  it  divides  and  distracts  the  nature  of  man, 
setting  one  impulse  against  another.     Thus  the  law     . 

°  f  &  Divides  and 

of  honor  forces  the  duellist  to  violate  many  of  the  distracts  the 
noblest  and  tenderest  affections,  —  to  set  aside,  if  not  ^^"^* 
to  trample  on,  the  otherwise  acknowledged  and  imperative  obli- 
gations of  conscience  at  the  factitious  and  often  the  cruel  and 
tyrannical  call  of  his  guild.  Even  when  it  does  not  openly 
corrupt  the  principles  or  offend  the  conscience,  it  exercises  a 
biasing  influence  which  warps  from  the  highest  integrity,  and 
weakens  individual  self-respect  and  independence,  making  a 
man  the  slave  of  a  superficial  and  often  an  artificial  social 
sentiment.  In  politics  it  works  all  manner  of  mischief  through 
a  servile  bondage  to  party ;  and  in  religion  it  is  at  once  sanc- 
timonious and  bigoted,  worshipping  in  the  streets  rather  than 
in  the  closet,  ascetic,  pharisaic,  selfish,  and  proud.  The  man 
who  confessedly  and  deliberately  makes  the  law  of  honor  su- 
preme must  in  heart  and  principle  be  a  traitor  to  conscience 
and  to  God. 

§  104.     On  the  other  hand,  the  law  of  honor  is  attractive  to 
the    moralist,    especially   when   manifested    in    its  _ 

noblest  and  more  elevated  forms.     It  clearly  shows,   tire  to  tiie 
by  its  effects  in  the  manners  and  actions,  to  what  *"**'**  *^** 
consummate  perfection  a  limited  class  of  external  virtues  may 


242  ELEMENTS  OF  MOBAL   SCIENCE,  [§  104. 

attain.     It  operates  with  intense  energy  and  surprising  effects. 
It  is  interesting  to  observe  for  ourselves,  and  to 

Is  energetic.  .         . 

read  in  history,  what  rare  perfection   of   courage, 

fidelity,  truth,  and  courtesy  have  been  attained  under  its  influ- 
ence, and  out  of  what  rough  material  at  times  such  grace  and 
courage  have  emerged,  especially  in  military  life,  and  under  the 
stimulus  and  formative  energy  of  a  professional  esprit  de  coiys. 
The  refinement  and  strength  of  this  sentiment  in  its  noblest 
exemplifications  were  most  felicitously  characterized  by  Burke 
as  "that  chastity  of  honor  which  felt  a  stain  like  a  wound." 
In  view  of  its  energy  to  inspire  and  refine,  to  transform  and 
re-create,  the  moralist  cannot  but  say  to  himself.  If  this  inferior 
and  partial  force  can  work  such  effects  of  transforming  energy 
and  almost  creative  power,  what  might  not  be  made  of  man  if 
the  law  of  duty  when  rightly  understood,  being  in  its  nature 
more  wide,  more  energetic,  more  penetrating,  and  more  refining, 
could  take  as  efficient  possession,  and  exert  as  powerful  in- 
fluence on  the  whole  man  and  the  society  which  he  would  form, 
and  by  which  he  in  turn  would  be  transformed  and  inspired ! 

The  moralist  notices,  again,  that  this  law  of  honor  is  in  a 
Is  more  or  Certain  sense  an  artificial  growth  or  creation  of  a 
less  artificial.  gQciety  of  like-minded  men,  agreeing  to  rule  and 
obey  one  another  in  respect  to  certain  acts  and  emotions.  He 
cannot  but  observe  how  this  artificial  and  often  capricious  and 
changing  social  product  has  attained  amazing  permanence  and 
power.  Men  sacrifice  to  it  their  lives,  their  health,  their  dearest 
interests,  and  often  their  nobler  reputation  and  truer  fame,  not 
infrequently  even  that  moral  life  from  which  the  law  of  honor 
itself  derives  all  the  dignity  and  authority  with  which  it  rules  the 
men  whom  it  destroys.  In  view  of  these  excellences  and  de- 
fects, he  can  scarcely  withhold  himself  from  asking  the  devotee 
of  this  product  of  social  life,  whether  it  does  not  justify  faith 
and  obedience  with  respect  to  that  higlier  law  of  duty,  which 
has  its  origin  in  the  nature  of  the  individual  soul,  its  confirma- 
tion in  social  forces,  and  its  sanction  in  the  authority  of  God. 


§105.]  THE  CONSCIENCE.  243 


^Al^l) 


CHAPTER  XVI. 

THE  CONSCIENCE. 

§  105.  We  complete  our  analysis  of  mao's  moral  nature  by 
ejiving  special  consideration  to  the  doctrine  of   The  „^ 

^         ^      ^  The  subject 

Conscience.  In  discussing  this  theme,  we  can  add  has  been 
little  or  nothing  to  what  has  already  been  proposed  *"*^^  ^*  ®  * 
m  principle  and  fact,  if  we  change  it  somewhat  in  form  and 
phrase.  We  can  do  little  more  than  gather  and  represent  the 
results  of  our  inquiries  in  a  different  order.  The  reason  for 
presenting  a  second  time  these  con*^lusions  under  this  new  title 
is  found  in  the  fact,  that,  speculatively^  conscience  is  not  infre- 
quently either  vaguely  conceived  or  misconceived ;  while  prac- 
tically^ perplexing  questions  concerning  the  conscience  are  so 
often  raised  and  so  unsatisfactorily  answered. 

The  conscience  is  very  frequently  used,  we  might  almost  say 
more  commonly,  to  designate  the  entire  moral  con- 
stitution or  nature  of   man,  whatever  this  is    con-   for  the 
ceived  to  be.     Those  who  hold  this  moral  nature  to  «"*^'*«  "'®'»i 

nature. 

be  a  separate  faculty,  not  infrequently  call  this 
faculty  the  conscience.  Thus  Dr.  Thomas  Reid  defines  it  as 
"  an  original  power  of  the  mind,  or  moral  faculty,  by  which  we 
have  the  conceptions  of  right  and  wrong  in  human  conduct, 
and  the  dictates  of  which  form  the  first  principles  of  morals.'* 
Others  limit  the  term  to  the  capacity  of  the  moral  nature  for  a 
limited  class  of  functions.  They  deny  to  conscience  the  func- 
tion of  apprehending  or  constructing  the  law  or  standard  of 
duty,  and  they  limit  it  to  the  office  of  applying  this  law  in  judg- 


244  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL  SCIENCE.  [§  105. 

ing  the  feelings  and  actions.  Thus,  President  Mark  Hopkins 
says,  the  law  being  supposed  to  be  known,  * '  We  may  define  it 
(i.e.,  the  conscience)  to  be  the  whole  moral  consciousness  of 
man  in  view  of  his  own  actions  and  as  related  to  moral  law** 
(Tlie  Law  of  Love,  etc.,  p.  i.,  div.  viii.).  In  such  an  applica- 
tion, those  feelings,  and  those  only,  which  attend  this  special 
function,  are  also  referred  to  the  conscience. 

The  reason  why  the  term  is  so  generally  accepted  as  the 
The  reason  appropriate  designation  for  the  moral  nature,  wholly 
^hy.  or  in  part,  is  not  far  to  seek.     The  moral  processes 

are  recognized  as  uniformly  those  in  which  consciousness  is  in- 
tensified into  reflection.  Hence  in  the  Greek  we  have  SwctSryo-ts, 
and  in  the  Latin  and  its  derived  languages  we  have  conscius, 
conscientia,  and  le  conscience.  In  the  German  we  have  das 
Gewissen,  from  wissen  (to  know) ,  which  is  nearly  allied  to  Be- 
wusstsein  and  Selbstbewustsein.  These  last-named  terms  bring 
into  strong  relief  the  certainty  or  confidence  which  attends  the 
operations  of  the  moral  factRty. 

Conscience  should  not  be  used  as  an  appellation  for  a  separate 
Why  im.  ^r  special  moral  faculty,  for  the  reason  that  there  is 
proper.  ^q  gu^h  faculty.    Every  step  and  result  of  the  preced- 

ing analysis  has  gone  to  show  this.  The  consciousness  of  all 
men  will  also  testify,  that,  in  our  moral  experiences,  all  the  so- 
called  psychical  powers  are  brought  into  requisition  and  active 
service.  Our  consciousness  is  equally  explicit  and  decided  in 
affirming  that  to  these  experiences  no  new  endowment  or  higher 
potency  of  either  intellect,  sensibility,  or  will  is  known  to  be 
introduced.  Nor  can  the  presence  of  either  be  inferred.  Such 
a  theory  or  inference,  moreover,  is  itself  contrary  to  all  analogy. 
Neither  the  intellect,  sensibility,  or  will  is  known  to  exercise 
peculiar  functions,  or  to  follow  different  laws  than  when  em- 
ployed upon  other  subject-matter.  The  same  intellect,  so  far  as 
it  knows  itself,  acts  with  respect  to  moral  relations  under  the 
same  laws,  and  by  the  same  methods  of  comparison,  deduction, 
and  inference,  as  when  it  is  concerned  with  other  material. 


§106.]  THE  CONSCIENCE.  245 

Nor  can  we  discover  new  and  peculiar  intuitions  or  categories, 
whether  directly  furnished  by  the  intellect  or  indirectly  derived 
from  the  sensibility  or  moral  sense.  The  only  intuition  which 
makes  itself  conspicuous  is  the  intuition  of  adaptation,  which 
involves  design.  But  this  intuition,  it  need  not  be  said,  is  in 
no  sense  limited  to  the  moral  intellect  or  moral  reason,  but  is 
assumed  as  the  postulate  of  science  and  philosophy  in  every  form. 
The  materials  with  which  the  conscience  operates  and  which  it 
presupposes  are  those  voluntary  states  and  acts  which  are  the 
joint  products  of  the  sensibility  and  will.  Given  the  will  as  the 
power  to  choose ;  given  the  sensibility  as  capable  of  active 
impulses ;  given  a  higher  and  lower  in  the  good  of  which  man 
is  capable  ;  given  the  self-conscious  intellect  to  discriminate  and 
reflect,  discerning  the  ends  and  adaptations  of  the  soul ;  and 
given  the  power  to  enforce  its  laws  by  motives  from  within,  as 
also  to  review  the  past,  to  judge  the  present,  and  to  forecast 
the  future,  —  and  you  have  all  the  endowments  required  for  the 
entire  range  of  moral  activities,  judgments,  and  emotions. 

It  is  not  any  single  endowment  that  constitutes  man  a  moral 
being,  nor  is  it  one  conspicuously  when  added  to  the  rest ;  but 
it  is  the  mutual  relationship  and  joint  activity  of  all  those 
endowments  which  constitute  the  soul  a  psychical  organism. 
Conspicuous  among  these  endowments  is  conscious-  conscious- 
ness ;    and  hence  consciousness  is   in   a   sense  the  "^^^  conspic- 

/.    ii  t     1  •         iT      .1  /.    uous  in  the 

representative  of  the  whole,  pre-eminently  those  of  ^orai  func- 
thought  and  feeling,  which  are  concerned  in  forming  **<>'^^- 
and  applying  the  rule  of  duty  to  direct  and  judge  of  the  moral 
activities. 

§  106.  It  is,  therefore,  to  a  part  only  of  these  endowments, 
that  the  special   appellation   of  the   conscience   is  conscience 
applied;  viz.,  to  the  intellect  and  the  sensibility  in  limited  to 

^^  ,.  .   ,  *^  the  intellect 

those  judgments  and  feelings  which  are  concerned  and  sensi- 
with  the  acts  and  states  of  the  will.     The  will,  being  ^*"*y* 
the  capacity  for  moral  choices,  is  never  included  under  the  con- 
science except  in  the  loosest  and  vaguest  use  of  the  appellation. 


246  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL  SCIENCE.  [§  107. 

The  will  furnishes  the  object-matter  about  which  the  conscience 
judges  and  feels.  In  speaking  or  thinking  of  the  conscience, 
we  suppose  an  act  or  state  of  the  will  to  be  proposed  for  the 
future,  or  to  have  been  achieved  in  the  past.  The  will  fur- 
nishes this  material  for  conscience  to  work  upon  ;  and  therefore 
the  will  is  not  included  under  conscience,  either  as  a  power,  an 
act,  or  a  product.  The  will  is  a  condition  of  its  exercise,  but 
in  no  sense  is  it  the  subject  of  its  functions. 

Usually,  also,  this  subject-matter  is  conceived  as  something 
which  is  past.  It  is  true  that  we  often  speak  of  scruples  of 
conscience,  of  the  commands  of  conscience,  which  terms  can 
apply  only  to  acts  or  feelings  which  are  thought  of,  but  not  yet 
achieved :  but  the  more  vivid  and  striking  examples  of  its 
activity  are  those  of  actions  done,  not  imagined  ;  achieved,  not 
anticipated.  Hence  the  vocabulary  and  diction  of  the  con- 
science in  conversation  and  literature. 

We  repeat  the  proposition,  conscience  is  limited  to  the  intel- 
lect and  sensibility  when  employed  upon  a  special 
ployed  upon  subject-matter.  That  it  is  applied  to  both  the  intel- 
a  special  sub-  ^QQt  and  the  sensibility,  is  evident  from  the  popular 

J 6€l* HI  At  16 IT* 

language,  which  speaks  with  equal  freedom  of  the 
judgments  and  decisions  of  conscience,  and  of  its  pains  and 
pleasures.  Bishop  Butler,  notwithstanding  his  characteristic 
caution,  affirms  the  same  in  the  following  :  ''  It  is  manifest  that 
a  great  part  of  common  language  and  of  common  behavior  over 
the  world  is  formed  upon  supposition  of  such  a  moral  faculty, 
whether  called  conscience,  moral  reason,  moral  sense,  or  divine 
reason ;  whether  considered  as  a  perception  of  the  understand- 
ing, or  a  sentiment  of  the  heart,  or,  which  seems  the  truth,  as 
including  both  "  {Diss.,  II.). 

§  107.  The  term  "  conscience"  has  still  another  application. 
.    »  . .        It  is  not  limited  to  these  functions  which  we  have 

Applied  to 

their  prod-      named.      It   also  designates   the   results  of    these 

ucts  also.  operations  in  the  special  judgments  or  conclusions 
which  are  reached  in  regard  to  matters  of  duty,  and  the  special 


§108.]  THE  CONSCIENCE.  247 

feelings  which  follow.  The  conscience  of  an  individual  or  a 
community  is  figuratively  used  as  a  collective  term  j  ^.  .^ 
for  the  sum  of  its  acknowledged  rules  of  duty,  and  and  public 
for  the  energy  and  quality  of  the  prevalent  emotions  <'^'^^**®"<'«* 
which  attend  them.  Each  man  is  supposed  to  have  formed  for 
himself  a  code  of  those  special  rules  or  standards  for  the  direc- 
tion and  trial  of  his  character  and  his  actions.  These  are  often 
spoken  of  as  his  consdeiice.  This  conscience  is  characterized 
intellectually  as  enlightened  or  darkened  ;  emotionally,  as  torpid, 
hardened,  seared,  or  active,  wakeful,  and  scrupulous.  By  a 
similar  usage,  we  extend  to  a  community  these  conceptions  and 
this  terminology  ;  and  think  and  speak  of  the  public  conscience^  of 
the  conscience  of  a  nation  or  a  period,  as  the  collective  state- 
ment or  conception  of  the  principles  or  rules  concerning  duty 
which  are  generally  acknowledged  by  a  particular  community, 
or  at  a  special  period  of  its  history  and  development.  Inas- 
much as  this  changing  condition  of  the  intellect  in  a  society  of 
men  carries  with  itself  changing  habits  and  conditions  of  feel- 
ing, we  also  speak  of  the  conscience  of  a  community  or  a  period 
as  hardened  or  wakeful,  "  seared  as  with  a  hot  iron,"  etc. 

In  accordance  with  this  theory,  the  schoolmen  distinguished 
conscience  as  ^vvTrjprja-t^  (i.e.,  the  internal  reposi- 
tory of    accepted   precepts  or  rules)  ;    conscience  2v^6ifi7,<ris,* 
as  Sw€t87yo-is  (i.e.,  as  witness)  ;  and  conscience  as  ""^ 
'E7rtKpto-t5  (i.e.,  as  judge  and  executioner).  '"'cpi«ris. 

Keeping  in  mind  that  conscience  as  a  power  includes  the  two 
elements  of  intellect  and  feeling,  we  observe,  — 

§  108.   (a)  That  as  an  intellectual  power  it  is  subject  to  the 
conditions   and  laws  of   the   intellect  as  employed  ^sanin- 
upon  various  kinds  of  subject-matter.     In  respect  to  teiiectuai 

■.      .  T  .'  /.    T    J        -i   .     •    /.  11.      power.    How 

certam  relations  and  questions  of  duty,  it  is  infalli-  far  infallible 
ble,  while  in  respect  to  others  it  is  fallible.     As  we  *"**  fallible, 
have  stated  and  urged  already  in  respect  to  the  end  of  man's 
active  nature  and  the  consequent  law  of  his  will,  conscience 
cannot   be   mistaken   if   it   attentively  considers   this   subject- 


248  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL   SCIENCE.  [§  108. 

matter.  .  No  more  can  it  be  mistaken  when  called  to  judge 
whether  man  ought  to  choose  according  to  duty.  Many  cir- 
cumstances may  hinder  an  attentive  application  of  the  mind  to 
the  relations  in  question  ;  as  a  defect  in  the  generalizing  power, 
or  in  the  habit  of  reflection,  or  in  a  strong  disinclination  to  use 
the  intellect  aright.  Each  of  these  intellectual  defects  may  be 
occasioned  by  intellectual  inactivity,  through  passion,  or  an 
excessive  confidence  in  the  teachings  of  others.  All  that  we 
assert  is,  that,  in  case  the  conscience  should  be  applied  to  these 
general  relations  of  duty,  its  judgments  would  be  infallible. 
The  truths  which  it  discerns  and  assents  to  are  in  their  nature 
as  clear  and  as  self-evident  as  are  the  postulates  and  axioms 
of  geometry.  This  may  also  be  true  of  some  of  the  relations 
of  the  intentions  to  external  action.  But  the  number  of  these 
relations  is  limited.  In  respect  to  very  many,  not  to  say  the 
most  of  these,  inasmuch  as  they  change  with  circumstances, 
the  relations  not  being  constant,  and  the  evidence  being  proba- 
ble and  inductive,  conscience  has  no  warrant  for  infallible  or 
even  for  uniform  decisions. 

It  follows,  that  conscience  as  the  intellect  is  the  subject  of 
various  degrees  of  certainty  in  its  judgments.  Con- 
doubtrai,  and  scicncc  is  absolutely  certain,  prevailingly  persuaded, 
Twuiating.  ^ouij^fui  and  vacillating.  The  importance  of  the 
questions,  and  the  immense  desirableness  of  clear  insight  and 
positive  convictions,  furnish  no  security  against  erroneous  or 
doubtful  judgments  in  those  cases  in  which  error  and  doubt  are 
possible.  Similarly,  in  judging  of  our  actual  intentions  and 
doings  in  the  light  of  an  accepted  standard,  —  i.e.,  in  estimating 
our  character  and  conduct  by  an  acknowledged  rule  of  duty,  — 
there  is  a  still  wider  opportunity  for  doubt  and  uncertainty  in 
the  decisions  of  conscience.  It  is  one  thing  to  be  certain  of  the 
law  of  duty,  and  altogether  another  to  know  whether,  in  will  or 
act,  we  actually  conform  to  this  law.  Intellectual  difficulties 
and  moral  biases  may  both  interfere  with  satisfactory  conclu- 
sions.    No  judgments  of  this  class  can  be  of  the  nature  of 


§109.]  TBE  CONSCIENCE.  249 

scientific  axioms  or  logical  inferences.  And  yet,  practically, 
many  of  them  may  be  altogether  satisfactory  and  sufficient.  In 
cases  of  exposure  to  serious  error  or  uncertainty,  the  assurance 
or  hope  of  spiritual  guidance  and  help  which  may  direct  the 
intellect  and  quicken  the  sensibilities  is  most  reasonable  and 
assuring. 

§  109.  (6)  Conscience,  as  sensibility,  follows  the  laws  of  the 
emotions.  The  feelings  invariably  follow  the  judg-  conscience  as 
ments,  whether  they  are  right  or  wrong.  Whatever  sensibility, 
may  be  the  judgment  of  conscience  as  the  intellect,  in  respect 
either  to  the  rule  of  duty  or  its  application,  whether  this  judg- 
ment be  right  or  wrong,  the  emotion  which  follows  will  be 
appropriate  to  this  judgment,  but  not  necessarily  appropriate  to 
the  truth.  If  the  man  has  adopted  an  erroneous  or  defective 
rule,  and  condemns  or  acquits  himself  when  tried  by  that  rule, 
the  sentence  of  approval  or  disapproval  will  follow  this  judg- 
ment. If  a  man  believes  he  ought  to  perform  a  special  act  of 
service  to  God,  or  to  his  neighbor,  or  to  himself,  and  performs 
that  service,  he  approves  himself  all  the  same,  whether  the  act 
be  righteous,  or  a  palpable  violation  of  duty.  On  the  other 
hand,  if  he  violates  what  he  thinks  to  be  his  duty  in  any  of 
these  relations,  by  doing  what  in  fact  is  the  right  thing  to  be 
done,  yet,  if  he  believes  the  act  to  be  wrong,  he  condemns  himself 
all  the  same.  The  mistaken  devotee,  the  misguided  fanatic, 
the  unreasoning  philanthropist,  the  headstrong  child,  parent, 
husband  and  wife,  the  self-torturing  ascetic,  the  philosophical 
libertine,  experience  all  the  emotions  which  they  ought  to  feel, 
provided  their  judgments  were  right,  although  every  one  of 
these  judgments  happens  to  be  wrong. 

The  simple  experience  of   self- approbation  or  reproach   of 
conscience  after  an  act,  or  of  scruples  or  confidence 

'  ^  Emotional 

before,  proves  nothing  in  respect  to  the  correctness  experiences 
or  incorrectness  of  the  judgments  which  occasion  <*^^®<'"<>"* 
these  emotions,  except  so  far  as  these  feelings  betray  a  secret 


250  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL  SCIENCE.  [§  110. 

conviction  that  these  judgments  ought  to  have  been  different, 
and  were  themselves  dishonestly  made.  What  are  called  the 
scruples  of  conscience,  the  reproaches  of  conscience,  or  the 
satisfaction  of  conscience,  usually  include  the  intellectual  judg- 
ments and  the  sense  of  certain  biasing  influences  in  the  forma- 
tion of  the  conclusions,  as  truly  as  they  do  the  emotions  which 
follow  them.  In  simple  emotion,  there  is  and  there  can  be  no 
guidance  except  as  emotion  indicates  a  concealed  suspicion  or 
judgment  in  a  disobedient  and  dishonest  mind. 

§  110.  (c)  Conscience,  both  as  intellect  and  sensibility,  can 
^    ^      ,.,     be   cultivated   and   developed.     Even   the   original 

Can  be  calti-  ^  *= 

Tatedand  Capacity  to  discern  those  moral  relations  that  are 
eve  ope  .  self-evident  can  be  made  more  quick  and  serviceable 
by  honest  and  frequent  use,  and  certainly  the  habit  of  recalling 
these  primal  relations  to  our  thoughts  is  matured  by  constant 
exercise.  Those  judgments  which  are  probable  and  inductive, 
being  founded  on  experience,  are  obviously  dependent  on  the 
general  cultivation  of  the  intellect,  and  its  special  training  in 
discerning  moral  relations.  If  conscience  is  only  another  name 
for  the  special  activities  of  the  man,  and  if  the  intellect  is 
capable  of  culture,  development,  and  progress,  then  conscience 
as  intellect  is  capable  of  making  progress  in  its  powers  and 
habits,  and  of  giving  proof  of  this  progress  by  an  improved 
moral  standard.  This  must  also  be  true  of  the  individual  and 
the  public  conscience,  so  far  as  a  community  can  be  said  to 
have  a  conscience. 

Conscience  as  feeling  can  also  be  cultivated  and  improved. 
The  capacity  for  feeling  of  every  description  increases  by  exer- 
cise. The  constant  use  of  the  moral  emotions  enlarges  and 
makes  more  sensitive  the  sensibilities.  What  is  of  equal  conse- 
quence, the  habit  of  connecting  the  responsive  emotions  quickly 
and  surely  with  each  intellectual  judgment  is  only  attained  by 
constant  exercise,  and  the  removal  of  every  adverse  influence. 
When  conscience  as  sensibility  is  perfected  in  the  service  of 


§111.]  THE  CONSCIENCE.  251 

duty,  its  courage  may  become  as  stern  and  hard  as  an  armor 
of  mail,  and  its  sensitiveness  as  delicate  as  the  blush  of  a 
woman. 

But  conscience,  whether  it  be  intellect  or  sensibility,  is  in  no 
sense  the  product  or  creature  of  culture  or  education.  It  is  as 
natural  and  as  necessary  to  man  to  discern  the  relations  of  duty 
as  it  is  to  discern  the  relations  of  number,  and  to  feel  morally 
as  it  is  to  feel  hunger  and  thirst. 

§  111.  (d)  As  conscience  can  be  cultivated  and  enlightened, 
so   it   can   be  debased  and  darkened.     By  neglect  „ 

^         ^  Can  be  de- 

or  misuse  its  self-evident  truths  can  be  overlooked  based  and 
or  forgotten,  its  inductive  and  probable  conclu-  ^**'''**"®^* 
sions  can  fail  to  be  reached,  and  even  those  which  are  false  or 
one-sided  can  be  accepted  in  their  place.  The  worse  may 
habitually  be  put  for  the  better  judgment,  and  the  most  sensi- 
tive feelings  may  be  brought  into  the  service  of  a  sophistical 
and  shallow  moral  code.  To  a  fearful,  but  not  to  an  unlimited 
extent,  it  can  put  darkness  for  light,  and  light  for  darkness. 
By  disuse  and  corruption  the  conscience  can  be  "  seared  as  with 
a  hot  iron  ; ' '  and  by  perversion  the  source  of  purity  can  itself 
be  defiled  with  depraved  associations. 

But,  with  all  its  capacities  for  degeneracy  and  debasement, 
the  conscience  can  never  be  destroyed.  The  original  cannot  be 
power  to  discern  ultimate  and  axiomatic  moral  truth  destroyed, 
remains  unimpaired,  so  soon  as  biasing  and  perverting  influences 
are  removed,  and  perverted  habits  of  reasoning  or  debasing 
habits  of  feeling  can  be  renounced  and  overcome  (cf.  S.  T. 
Coleridge,  Aids  to  Reflection^  Moral  and  Religious  Aphorisms^ 
xlvi.). 

The  disadvantages  are  so  serious,  however,  under  which  this 
work  of  restoring  and  reforming  the  conscience  is 
prosecuted,  as  to  furnish  occasion  for  every  possible  under  dis- 
auxiliary.     Prominent  among  such  influences,  and   *  ^*"  *^®** 
practically  indispensable,  are  the  influences  of  religion,  with  its 
positive  instructions  uttered  by  divine  authority  to  direct  and 


252  ELEMENTS  OF  MOEAL   SCIENCE.  [§  112. 

strengthen  the  intellect ;  with  its  peculiar  motives  to  affect  the 
heart ;  with  its  transcendent  example  and  embodiment  of  con- 
descension and  love  ;  and  those  special  aids  which  conspire  with 
or  against  the  unconscious  operations  of  the  soul,  to  break 
and  recast  the  subtile  bonds  of  association  and  habit. 

The  independence  and  supremacy  of  conscience  have  often 
,    ,  ,       ^    been  pushed  so  far  as  to  remove  it  beyond  the  reach 

Its  independ-  ^  -^ 

enceand  of  cxtraneous  influences  for  good  or  for  evil.  It 
supremacy,  j^^^^  ^^^  argucd,  that  if  conscience  is  independent 
as  a  judge,  and  finds  in  itself  a  complete  autonomy,  then  it  is 
lifted  above  the  need  of  instruction,  the  reach  of  authority,  the 
danger  of  debasement,  and  the  possibility  of  any  other  than 
self-recovery.  Such  a  theory  of  conscience  is  inconsistent  with 
our  speculative  or  practical  knowledge  of  man  in  all  the  rela- 
tions of  life. 

§  112.  In  one  sense,  conscience  has  supreme  authority. 
Its  supreme  "  Had  it  strength  as  it  has  right,  had  it  power  as  it 
authority.  jj^s  manifest  authority,  it  would  absolutely  govern 
the  world""  (Bishop  Butler,  Diss.,  II.).  All  that  can  be  in- 
tended by  this  saying  is,  that  all  men  consent  that  it  is  fitting 
that  the  judgments  and  motives  of  conscience  should  be  obeyed. 
Its  pains  and  pleasures  are  in  their  nature  more  important  than 
any  and  all  others  besides.  Whatever  a  man  knows  to  be  right, 
by  that  very  fact  he  accepts  as  the  controlling  law  of  his  active 
energies,  supreme  over  himself  and  all  moral  beings.  But 
conscience  is  not  therefore  infallible.  In  some  of  its  judgments 
it  cannot  be  mistaken,  and  these  it  confidently  imposes  on  all 
moral  beings.  Other  of  its  conclusions  are  only  probable. 
But  for  every  one  who  receives  them,  these  are  supreme ;  being 
morally  binding  upon  him,  but  not  necessarily  upon  others. 
They  are  not,  however,  final,  even  for  him.  He  may  renew 
these  judgments,  and  annul  the  obligations  which  they  impose. 
But,  so  long  as  the  judgments  are  retained,  the  obligations  to 
obey  them  are  complete  and  supreme.  In  this  sense,  and  to  this 
extent,  conscience  is  the  supreme  and  ultimate  tribunal. 


§  113.]  THE  CONSCIENCE.  253 

§  113.  The  question  is  often  asked,  whether  a  man  is  always 
right  in   obeying  his  conscience.      To   answer   this 

.    „  .1  ,  .  .     ,      ,        Should 

question  satisfactorily,  we  must  keep  m  mind  the  conscience 
different  senses  in  which  the  word  "  risrht "  is  used,   aJways**^ 

^  obeyed] 

as  these  senses  have  been  already  defined  (§  85). 
If  we  mean  by  the  question.  Does  a  man  always  do  that  which 
is  relatively  right  when  he  obeys  his  conscience  ?  that  is.  Does 
he  always  perform  the  external  action  which  is  right  under  the 
circumstances?  we  reply,  By  no  means.  The  decision  of  his 
conscience  that  such  an  action  is  right  may  be  wholly  mistaken. 
But  if  the  question  is.  Does  a  man  err  if  he  follows  the  judg- 
ment or  command  of  his  conscience  as  to  what  should  be  the 
controlling  purpose  of  his  will?  we  answer.  He  cannot  possibly 
be  in  the  wrong  in  respect  to  such  a  judgment  or  such  an  act. 
So  soon,  however,  as  the  question  respects  the  manifestation 
or  execution  of  the  intent  in  specific  actions,  the  possibility  of 
occasional  or  of  frequent  errors  must  be  conceded,  with  a  few 
comprehensive  exceptions. 

Conscience  is  often  spoken  of  as  the  voice  or  oracle  of  God, 
as  a  divine  genius,  an  unerrinoj  director,  etc.,  in  ^. 

'^  "  Figuratively 

terms  which  represent  it  as  an  infallible  ruler  and  character- 
guide.  Language  like  this  may  not  mislead  when  ^^  ' 
the  comprehensive  rules  of  duty  which  respect  the  inner  man 
are  in  question.  They  may  not  when  those  actions  are  con- 
sidered which  justify  themselves  to  the  rapid  but  sure  inductions 
of  common-sense  under  the  common  conditions  of  life.  In 
respect  to  all  such  questions,  we  may  say  with  truth  and  with 
confidence,  that  the  honest  conscience  may  trust  itself,  espe- 
cially when  its  motives  are  purified  by  prayer,  and  its  judgments 
are  made  self-suspecting  by  reverent  thoughts  of  God.  But,  to 
find  in  every  judgment  of  duty  which  we  accept  for  ourselves  an 
infallible  rule  of  duty  which  we  may  impose  on  our  fellow-men, 
is  to  lose  sight  of  our  human  limitations,  and  often  to  part  with 
both  moderation  and  modesty.  The  claim  of  infallibility  for 
what  may  be  our  defective  or  misjudged  opinions  is  usually 


254  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL   SCIENCE.  [§  114. 

attended  by  the  tyrannical  and  presumptuous  impulse  to  enforce 
these  opinions  on  our  fellow-men.  Among  the  many  outrages 
which  have  been  perpetrated  in  the  name  of  conscience,  none 
surpasses  this  of  setting  up  the  narrow  or  hasty  judgments  of 
an  individual  or  a  community  as  the  eternal  and  authorized  rule 
of  duty  for  all  mankind.  In  such  cases  the  ignorance  of  the 
fundamental  principles  of  moral  truth  is  only  surpassed  by  the 
arrogance  with  which  these  rash  conclusions  are  imposed  upon 
others.  Nothing  is  so  well  fitted  to  bring  into  suspicion  and 
contempt  the  sacred  authority  of  this  supreme  arbiter  as  such 
extravagant  and  unqualified  claims  of  authority  for  the  individual 
conscience  upon  every  question  of  duty  which  may  arise. 

§  114.  Is  a  man  ever  justified  in  acting  against  his  conscience? 
May  it  ever  If  this  question  means,  Would  a  man  ever  perform 
be  disobeyed?  ^  right  action  Outwardly,  should  he  act  in  a  manner 
diverse  from  that  prescribed  by  his  conscience?  we  answer, 
Unquestionably  he  would.  A  physician  who  has  an  incorrect 
theory  of  medicine,  or  who  has  made  an  imperfect^  diagnosis  of 
the  condition  of  his  patient,  may  verily  think  that  he  ought  to 
give  as  medicine  that  which  is  death  to  the  victim  of  his  igno- 
rance or  his  blunder.  Similarly,  there  is  nothing  which  will 
necessarily  secure  a  man  from  adopting  mistaken  conclusions  as 
to  what  he  ought  to  do  for  himself,  his  family,  his  friends,  his 
country,  or  his  religion.  Whoever  follows  his  conscience,  thus 
misjudging  or  misinformed,  will  in  every  case,  in  external  ac- 
tion, do  that  which  is  completely  wrong. 

But  if  the  question  means.  Is  a  man  ever  morally  justified  in 
disobeying  his  conscience  ?  we  answer  unhesitatingly :  No,  — 
not  even  though  in  disobeying  his  conscience  he  should  happen 
to  perform  an  action  which  externally  and  relatively  is  wholly 
right.  But  for  him  to  perform  such  an  action,  with  his  views 
of  its  nature,  would  be  wholly  wrong.  The  first  step  for  him 
to  take  towards  complete  rectitude  is  to  correct  his  conscience, 
i.e.,  to  form  a  well-grounded  judgment  of  the  nature  of  the  acts 
in   question.     Afterwards   he  may  follow  this  corrected  con- 


§115.]  THE  CONSCIENCE.  255 

science  in  the  actions  to  which  it  will  direct,  and  which  may  be 
presumed  to  be  both  absolutely  and  relatively  right. 

§  115.  Besides  the  mistaken,  there  is  iha perverted  or  dishonest 
conscience.     In  the  cases  already  supposed,  the  man 
is  in  error,  and  yet  free  from  guilt.     If  his  knowl-  yerted  and 
edore  of  the  facts  or  relations  which  should  determine  ^Jshonest 

'^  conscience. 

his  judgment  is  limited  or  erroneous  by  no  fault  of 
his  own,  then  he  is  wholly  guiltless,  though  his  conscience  is 
misled.  But  if  he  suspects  he  may  be  in  the  wrong,  and  still 
yields  to  sophistical  reasonings  which  he  cannot  wholly  refute, 
or  to  the  imperfect  or  false  information  which  he  persuades  him- 
self to  believe,  his  conscience  is  popularly  said  to  be  perverted. 
He  is  not  wholly  guilty  for  his  erroneous  conscience,  while  yet 
the  bias  or  perversion  of  his  conscience  is  more  or  less  his  fault. 
It  seems  a  paradox  to  say  that  a  man  knows  better  than  to 
think,  feel,  or  act  as  he  does,  and  yet  that  he  follows  his  con- 
science. The  paradox  can  be  explained  only  by  distinguishing 
two  modes  of  knowledge  as  possible  to  the  same  person,  — the 
direct  and  reflective  ;  or,  better  perhaps,  the  unformulated  and 
the  formulated.  In  the  line  of  explicit  statement  or  formal 
deduction,  the  conclusion  which  is  accepted  seems  to  be  unavoid- 
able ;  the  premises  seem  plausible,  almost  self-evident ;  they 
are  also  enforced  by  high  authority :  and  yet  the  inferences 
which  they  justify  and  compel  offend  the  prevailing  convictions 
of  the  man.  If,  now,  these  conclusions  are  also  enforced  by  his 
strong  wishes,  or  by  sonic  biasing  influence  of  association, 
habit,  or  tradition,  it  is  likely  that  the  erroneous  logic  will  pre- 
vail, and  the  man  will  reason  himself  into  what  he  calls  a  con- 
scientious belief;  although  it  contradicts  his  enlightened  sus- 
picions or  his  better  judgment. 

The  methods  or  devices  by  which  a  man  may  mislead  his 
conscience  are  manifold.    A  true  principle  is  adopted,   „  ,   ,  ^ 

^  ^  ^         '    Methods  by 

as,  it  is  wrong  to  encourage  communism,  —  which  which  it  is 

may  or  may  not  apply  to  the  act  in  question,  —  or,   ™  ^  ®  * 

to  break  any  other  rule  or  principle  which  has  been  accepted  as 


256  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL   SCIENCE,  [§  116. 

self-evident  or  unquestioned.  The  force  of  such  a  major  prem- 
ise is  carried  violently  over  to  the  minor  and  the  conclusion. 
Or  the  principle  is  generally  but  not  invariably  true  ;  as,  to  give 
relief  to  a  street-beggar  is  always  wrong.  Prejudice  (literally 
a  pre-judgment)  decides  beforehand  that  all  men  of  a  given 
party  or  sect  or  nationality  are  of  course  to  be  suspected  or 
rejected  as  witnesses  and  reasoners,  and  the  sweep  and  force  of 
this  logic  is  wide-reaching  and  resistless  when  enforced  and 
accepted  by  partisan  excitement  or  dishonest  dogmatism.  Men 
of  usually  sound  judgment  and  honest  intentions  sometimes  are 
induced  to  accept  conclusions  to  which  the  logic  of  reason  and 
candor  gives  a  feeble  support.  Representations  which  favor  the 
conclusions  which  we  desire  to  justify  are  welcomed  with  a  ready 
and  liberal  confidence,  while  the  opposing  testimony  is  set  aside 
with  distrust. 

§  116.  In  every  case  of  a  perverted  conscience,  there  is  a  real 
or  imagined  discrepancy  between  the  prevailing  be- 
liefs  and   the   so-called   conscientious  conclusions,   discrepancy 
This  discrepancy  is  not  usually,  it  may  never  be,   Je*,'^^*'^*^® 
distinctly  recognized ;  but  it  must  be  more  or  less  fictitioag 
distinctly  suspected.     Were  the  man  fully  satisfied  ^^^^^  *"**' 
with  himself,  he  might  be  in  error,  but  his  conscience  could  not 
be  perverted.     The  ground  of  steadfast  and  sturdy  adherence  to 
the  conclusions  of  the  perverted  conscience  is  strong  desire, 
confirmed  by  logical  reasonings  from  insufficient  or  uncertain 
data.     This  is  specially  manifest  when  the  conscience  is  made 
to  favor  cruel  and  selfish  passion,  pre-eminently  if  the  passion 
is  sanctioned  by  the  supposed  favor  of  the  Deity.     At  first 
thought  it  would  seem  to  be  the  strangest  of  all  the  strange 
manifestations  of  human  passion,  that  no  hatreds  are  so  malig- 
nant as  those  which  are  conceived  to  justify  religious  persecu- 
tion, and  no  cruelties  have  been  so  relentless  as  those  which  were 
supposed  to  be  required  by  conscience  and  by  God.     On  second 
thought  it  is  not  so  singular,  if  we  reflect  that  in  such  cases  the 
two  most  potent  impulses  are  awakened  that  can  move  a  human 


§  117.]  THE  CONSCIENCE.  257 

being, — malignfint  passion,  and  the  fear  of  God;  God  being 
believed  to  sanction  the  passions  of  envy  and  hate. 

§  117.  In  view  of  the  imperfections  of  conscience,  and  its  fail- 
ures as  an  infallible  guide  ;  especially  in  view  of  its  igitgyerbest 
special  exposures  to  the  biasing  influences  of  feel-  not  to  reason, 
ing,  and  the  sophistical  perplexities  of  logic,  —  the 
rule  has  not  infrequently  been  laid  down,  that  in  doubtful  ques- 
tions of  duty  it  is  safer  and  wiser  not  to  reason  at  all.  Some  go 
so  far  as  to  advise,  without  qualification,  ''It  is  better  to  trust 
the  feelings  than  arguments.  In  questions  of  duty  it  is  wiser 
and  safer  to  follow  the  impulses  of  sentiment,  rather  than  the 
conclusions  of  logic.'* 

*'  And  puzzled,  blinded  thus,  we  lose 
Distinctions  that  are  plain  and  few: 
These  find  I  graven  on  my  heart: 
That  tells  me  what  to  do." 

Wordsworth:  Rob  Roy*s  Grave, 

In  one  interpretation,  this  rule  is  intellectually  sound  and 
practically  wise.  If  a  man  cannot  master  the  relations  in- 
volved in  a  question  of  duty,  or  a  case  of  conscience,  so  as  to 
reason  clearly  and  wisely  in  respect  to  either,  it  were  better  to 
rest  in  a  decision  without  attempting  to  construct  an  argument. 
For  many  persons  it  is  doubtless  true,  that  to  debate  a  question 
is  to  lose  your  cause.  To  parley  with  an  antagonist  who  tempts 
you  to  a  doubtful  indulgence,  is  to  be  lost.  Better  a  thousand 
times,  because  it  is  a  thousand  times  safer,  to  follow  the  course 
which  commends  itself  to  a  sound  and  practical  judgment,  than 
to  trust  your  decision  and  yourself  to  the  chances  of  a  formu- 
lated induction  or  an  articulated  syllogism  to  which  you  are 
incompetent.  This  rule  is  no  more  true  and  wise  in  morals, 
however,  than  it  is  in  other  departments  of  intellectual  activity. 
The  majority  of  the  inductions  which  control  the  opinions  and 
decide  the  interests  of  mankind  are  made  by  men  who  are  in- 
capable of  stating  or  defending  the  logic  of  the  processes  which 
they  implicitly  trust.      But  it  does  not  follow,  because  these 


258  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL  SCIENCE.  [§  117. 

processes  cannot  be  analj^zed  or  formulated  by  the  men  who 
perform  and  trust  them,  that  they  are  incapable  of  analysis  and 
justification.  Least  of  all  does  it  follow,  that  in  these  doubtful 
cases,  or  in  any  case,  the  feelings  may  come  in,  and  usurp  the 
prerogatives  of  the  intellect,  and  displace  its  activities.  In 
every  case  of  the  kind,  it  is  the  intellect  which  must  decide,  and 
not  the  feelings.  To  trust  to  the  feelings  alone  in  disputed  or 
perplexed  questions  of  duty,  is  unsound  in  theory,  and  unsafe 
if  not  fanatical  in  practice.  The  feelings  are  always  impulsive 
and  blind,  except  as  they  are  guided  by  the  intellect,  or  are 
used  by  the  intellect  as  data  from  which  it  may  derive  rational 
conclusions.  What  are  called  the  unconquerable  feelings,  the 
irresistible  emotions,  or  the  all-powerful  sentiments,  are  in  fact 
rational  convictions  glowing  with  warm  emotion,  rapid  induc- 
tions which  the  mind  can  not  or  will  not  analyze,  or  comprehen- 
sive generalizations  unconsciously  gathered  from  many  sagacious 
observations.  ' 

It  follows,  that  the  truly  conscientious  man  will  always  hear 
reasons  and  give  reasons  in  respect  to  his  beliefs  and  his  actions. 
He  is  always  ready  to  revise  his  opinions  on  the  semblance  of 
a  reason.  He  is  never  afraid  to  consider  a  new  truth,  nor  to 
view  an  old  truth  in  a  new  light,  but  seeks  illumination  from 
every  quarter.  The  wilfully  blind,  the  doggedly  obstinate, 
the  passionately  intolerant,  the  mulishly  persistent,  in  respect 
to  those  opinions  of  duty  which  they  have  blindly  inherited  or 
adopted  as  partisans,  are  greatly  deficient  in  the  characteristic 
signs  of  a  conscientious  spirit. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  disciplined  conscience  has  gained  by  its 
The  Intuitive  ^^^^^^l^^  inductions  a  species  of  tact  which  is  akin 
tact  of  con-  to  intuition.  The  sensitiveness  of  its  ethical  emo- 
tions  has  been  matured  to  a  corresponding  delicacy. 
Its  judgments,  like  those  of  an  accomplished  artisan,  artist, 
critic,  or  physician,  do  not  need  to  be  analyzed  into  their  grounds 
to  be  justified  to  the  intellect.  Its  feelings  follow  the  conclu- 
sions so  quickly  as  to  seem  to  form  a  part  of  their  substance. 


§117.]  THE  CONSCIENCE.  259 

That  is  a  fitting  arrangement  in  the  moral  economy  which 
rewards  iriplicit  obedience  to  the  law  of  duty  by  this  subtile 
power  to  interpret  its  meaning  in  trying  and  difficult  cases, 
and  suffers  those  who  are  false  to  their  moral  convictions  to 
become  incapable  of  holding  any  convictions  except  that  moral 
relations  are  untrustworthy.  There  is  a  profound  philosophy 
in  the  words,  "The  light  of  the  body  is  the  eye:  if  therefore 
thine  eye  be  single,  thy  whole  body  shall  be  full  of  light :  but  if 
thine  eye  be  evil,  thy  whole  body  shall  be  full  of  darkness.  If 
therefore  the  light  that  is  in  thee  be  darkness,  how  great  is  that 
darkness !  '* 


260  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL  SCIENCE.  [§  118. 


CHAPTER  XVII. 


CASES  OF  CONSCIENCE,  CASUISTRY,  CONFLICT  OF  DUTIES, 
AND  TOLERATION. 

§  118.  Cases  of  conscience  are  doubtful  or  disputed  questions  of  duty, 
which  present  themselves  for  adjudication,  either  to  the 
Cases  of  earnest  inquirer,  the  friendly  arbiter,  or  the  spiritual  guide. 

J,  a     J,  These  inquiries  respect  some  act  of  duty  ill  regard  to  which 

the  inquirer  is  supposed  to  be  in  doubt,  —  either  to  some  act 
as  yet  not  performed,  concerning  which  the  question  of  its  obligation  is 
undecided;  or  some  act  in  the  past,  for  which  repentance  or  reparation  is 
possibly  due.  The  diflficulty  arises  from  the  apparently  conflicting  claims 
of  two  or  more  incompatible  actions,  each  of  which,  under  other  circum- 
stances, would  be  a  duty,  and  both  of  which,  very  frequently,  have  the 
semblance  and  authority  of  moral  obligation.  As,  for  example,  duty  to  a 
parent  may  seem  to  conflict  with  duty  to  a  child ;  duty  to  ourself ,  with  the 
claim  of  a  beloved  and  honored  relative  or  friend;  duty  to  country,  with 
duty  to  God.  "We  say,  seem  to  conflict:  for,  as  we  have  contended,  an 
actual  conflict  of  duties  is  impossible;  it  being  obvious  that  the  duty  which 
we  decide  to  be  supreme  is,  in  the  given  case,  the  only  act  which  can  be 
acknowledged  as  binding,  while  yet  the  claim  and  the  sacredness  of  what 
might  otherwise  be  a  duty  seems  not  wholly  set  aside  and  extinguished  by 
the  authority  of  its  apparent  superior. 

The  mastery  of  the  principles  or  rules  proper  to  decide  these  cases  of 
conscience  often  becomes  a  discipline  or  profession  by  itself, 
a.  Drofe  sion  ^^^  ^^^  been  made  a  special  study  whenever  men  have  form- 
ally undertaken  the  direction  of  the  conscience,  as  spiritual 
advisers  or  confessors,  or  friendly  or  legal  arbiters.  The  strong  and  per- 
tinacious desires  of  multitudes  to  resort  to  a  directory  of  this  sort  would 
give  evidence,  were  there  no  other,  that  earnest  men  are  very  often  per- 
plexed by  difficulties  over  such  questions. 

These  conflicts  respecting  the  duties  and  rights  of  men  assume  great- 
importance  when  the  claims  of  opposing  parties  are  urged  upon  guardians, 


6  119.1     CASES  OF  CONSCIENCE,   CASUISTET,  ETC.        2^1-  ,4 

trustees,  etc.,  or  any  person  who  acts  in  a  fiduciary  relation,  or  when  legal 

or  at  least  equitable  demands  are  urged  from  diverse  parties, 

on  moral  grounds,  or  grounds  partially  moral  and  partially    ^^^^^ 

jural.     That  there  is  occasion  for  a  brief  discussion  of  this         ^f  1 

topic,  is  manifest  from  these  and  other  considerations.    All 

that  we  can  undertake  is  to  refer  to  the  ethical  principles  which  we  have 

already  settled,  and  to  show  their  application  to  the  cases  and  questions 

described. 

§  119.  In  adjusting  the  claims  of  what  we  have  called  conflicting  duties, 
we  should  never  forget,  that,  inforo  conscientice,  duty  properly 
and  primarily  pertains  to  the  voluntary  desire.  Its  subject-  Moral  qualitj 
matter  is  wholly  psychical.  What  a  man  should  prefer,  or  ^ .  .  .  ?. 
voluntarily  wish,  in  a  most  important  spiritual  and  real  purposes, 
sense,  exhausts  the  matter  of  his  duty  in  its  most  imperative 
relations.  Next,  it  is  equally  true,  that,  whenever  a  voluntary  purpose  or 
desire  impels  to  a  definite  expression  or  action,  this  external  act  is  as  truly 
and  as  sacredly  a  duty  as  the  inner  purpose.  Whenever,  also,  only  one 
of  two  external  acts  can  be  performed,  two  only  being  possible,  it  is  one's 
duty  to  decide,  from  the  highest  evidence  attainable,  which  of  the  two 
should  be  i^erformed.  It  will  not  meet  the  case  to  say,  The  intention  is  the 
supreme  ethical  good,  and  I  will  be  content  with  that.  It  will  not  satisfy 
the  conscience  to  say,  or  to  reason.  The  intention  alone  has  moral  quality; 
and  therefore  I  will  stop  with  the  intention,  and  so  waive  obedience  to 
the  impulse  to  action.  The  right  volition  is  always  a  volition  to  act  if  an 
action  is  possible ;  that  is,  it  is  a  preferred  impulse,  and  it  waits  only  to 
know  how  to  act  it  out,  or  what  to  do.  The  only  question  which  it  asks, 
or  cares  to  determine,  is,  What  shall  I  do  in  order  to  effect  the  obligatory 
desire  ?  If,  now,  several  acts  claim  the  preference,  on  what  ground  can 
I  adjust  these  conflicting  claims  ?  Only  on  the  ground  of  the  superior 
fitness  of  one  to  effect  more  completely  the  common  object  to  which  all 
duty  tends,  and  to  reach  which  every  duty  is  performed.  This  is  the  sole 
question  which  can  possibly  remain  to  be  decided  or  adjusted.  The  ques- 
tion of  superior  claims,- though  it  concerns  the  moral  obligation  or  prefer- 
ability  of  actions,  turns  altogether  upon  the  question  of  their  fitness  as 
related  to  that  end  which,  it  is  acknowledged,  every  action  aims  to  accom- 
plish, and  by  which  aim  it  becomes  morally  good  or  evil. 

§  120.  It  has  been  already  proVed  (§  70),  that,  in  framing  rules  for  the 
external  actions,  we  only  assume  of  a  limited  class  of  such 
actions  that  they  ought  always  to  be  performed,  i.e.,  whenever    Certain  ac- 
^1  1  ^1  1  I  •         tions  never 

there  is  an  occasion  for  them;  and  that,  when  such  occasion      ^    t^  of 

arises,  no  question  can  possibly  arise,  and  no  other  pretended    question, 
duty  can  take  their  place.    It  is  observed,  that,  in  regard  to 
actions  of  this  sort,  a  case  of  conscience  can  never  arise,  the  duties  being 
always  obligatory.    Inasmuch  as  one  duty  can  never  yield  to  the  claims  of 


262  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL  SCIENCE.  [§  121. 

any  other  duty,  there  can  be  no  conflict  whatever.  The  obligation  to  the 
external  action  is  as  real  and  as  uncompromising  as  the  obligation  to  any 
internal  purpose  or  affection.  Such  cases,  say  a  deed  of  open  homage  to 
God,  can  never  come  into  conflict  with  any  other  claim,  and,  therefore,  can 
never  furnish  the  material  for  a  case  of  conscience.  It  is  only  when  two 
acts,  both  being  obligatory  at  times,  and  both  apparently  able  to  urge  their 
rival  reasons  drawn  from  some  good  which  will  attend  upon  each,  —  it  is 
only  then  that  any  question  involving  a  conflict  of  duties  can  possibly  arise. 
Take  an  example:  Shall  duty  to  one  child,  with  its  special  claims  for 
urgent  practical  help,  take  precedence  of  duty  to  another  child,  with  its 
extraordinary  appeals  to  the  sympathy  of  the  parent  ?  Shall  I  give  largely 
to  an  object  of  individual  or  family  or  social  culture,  or  to  some  com- 
manding patriotic  or  Christian  interest?  Shall  I,  for  the  sake  of  some 
urgent  good,  offend  the  taste  and  shock  the  conscience  of  my  neighbor,  or 
run  counter  to  the  moral  feelings  of  the  community  in  which  I  live?  Shall 
I  do  what,  in  ordinary  cases,  would  rightfully  be  called  a  deed  of  cruelty  to 
parent  or  friend,  in  order  to  save  the  life  of  another  person? 

It  has  already  been  said,  that  if  the  act  in  question  is  always,  under  all 
circumstances,  obligatory,  or  always  criminal,  the  question  is  settled  once 
for  all:  it  must  always  be  performed  or  avoided,  let  whatever  other  sup- 
posed duty  interfere.  If  it  is  not  an  act  of  this  kind,  then  it  must  be 
settled  by  such  reasons  as  should  influence  the  decision  of  any  question  of 
external  action,  —  whether  prudence,  taste,  or  personal  feelings,  casual  or 
permanent  associations,  near  or  remote  consequences.  The  question  is 
one  of  the  effects  of  the  two  actions,  of  the  actual  good  which  will  proba- 
bly follow,  using  good  in  the  widest  possible  sense.  It  does  not  concern 
the  intention  on  the  part  of  the  doer.  Concerning  that,  there  is  no  possible 
question,  and  there  can  be  no  conflict.  It  relates  to  the  result  in  the 
largest  sense,  whether  it  is  more  or  less  beneficent  or  harmful. 

§  121.  This  -narrows  the  question  to  the  inquiry  whether  the  occasion 

can  arise,  that  those  current  maxims  which,  with  rare  excep- 

When  cases       tions,  rule  mankind,  should  ever  be  broken,  and  the  hal- 

of  conscience    j^^g^j  associations  that  are  connected  with    certain  overt 

become 

serious.  actions  should  ever  be  violated.    This  involves  another  ques- 

tion, whether  feeling  or  judgment  should  rule;  to  which  there 
can  be  but  one  answer.  The  cases  of  the  conflict  of  duties,  which  are  often 
of  serious  interest,  are  such  as  arise  out  of  what  are  properly  called  the 
natural  or  legal  rights,  as  determined  by  venerable  customs  and  tradition- 
ary law,  when  one  act  or  both  is  in  conflict  with  what  seem  to  be  the  dictates 
of  ethical  justice  and  natural  conscience;  as  in  the  distribution  of  property 
by  the  accident  of  relationship,  or  the  caprice  of  weakness,  or  the  crimes  of 
wickedness.  In  such  cases,  men  easily  cry  out  against  the  conflict  between 
what  they  call  righteousness  on  the  one  hand,  and  law  on  the  other;  and 
imagine  that  in  the  present  evil  world,  as  they  call  it,  or  in  this  disordered 


§  122.]     CASES  OF  CONSCIENCE,   CASUISTRY,  ETC.        263 

and  exceptional  province  of  the  moral  universe,  a  perpetual  conflict  has 
heen  ordained  of  nature  and  of  God,  between  these  two  forces,  which  it  is 
impossible  to  adjust,  however  much  it  may  be  desired.  They  might  much 
more  reasonably  explain  such  conflicts  by  the  wholesome  ethical  discipline 
which  attends  every  phase  of  human  life,  under  which  the  ideal  is  perjoetu- 
ally  contrasted  with  the  real;  the  best  men,  the  best  deeds,  and  the  best 
aspirations  are  misunderstood;  the  best  plans  are  imperfectly  realized,  and 
the  noblest  sacrifices  are  disappointed.  It  should  also  be  remembered, 
that,  in  morals,  the  ideal  is  in  every  one's  power;  and  hence  the  obliga- 
tion to  noble  aims  and  pure  aspirations  is  never  abated.  Mistakes  and 
failures  in  the  manifestations  of  what  we  desire  and  perform  are  the  conse- 
quences of  other  limitations  than  the  moral.  They  do  not  always  follow 
moral  imperfection,  though  they  often  may.  The  incidents  of  earthly 
discipline,  and  even  the  mistaken  doings  and  enterprises  of  the  noblest 
men,  may  turn  out  to  be  more  salutary  to  themselves,  and  better  for  the 
world,  than  their  wiser  judgments  or  their  more  consistent  and  useful 
external  actions. 

§  122.  Questions  of  casuistry  being  never  questions  concerning  the  pur- 
poses, but   always  questions    concerning  the  effects,  of  our    rasaistrv  is 
actions,  afford  abundant  opportunity  for  diversity  of  opin-    concerned 
ions,  with  equal  honesty  of  mind.    In  regard  to  many  ques-    with  the 
tions  of  duty,  men  not  only  may,  but  must,  differ  in  opinion;    et^e*^ts  of 
it  being  presumed  that  they  also  differ  in  their  range  of  infor- 
mation, their  quickness  of  thought,  their  accuracy  of  memory,  and  their 
sensitiveness  of  feeling.    Two  men,  equally  honest,  may  "  look  at  opposite 
sides  of  the  shield,"  or  view  a  landscape  from  different  points  of  view, 
and,  if  they  do,  must  see  different  objects. 

It  follows,  that,  in  forming  opinions  for  themselves  concerning  doubtful 
or  contested  questions  of  duty,  men  should  be  cautious,  pa-    TemDcr  in 
tient,  and  docile,  and  ready  to  hear  both  sides.    In  deciding    ^rhich  such 
such  questions  for  others,  they  should  be  eminently  impartial    questions 
and  unprejudiced.    In  judging  of  the  decisions  made  by  oth-    should  be 
ers,  they  should  be  studiously  dispassionate  and  charitable. 
No  opinions  are  more  likely  to  be  called  in  question  with  a  passionate 
earnestness   than  the  opinions  which   are  formed  by  our  fellow-men  in 
regard  to  any  disputed  question  of  duties  or  rights  in  which  they  have 
a  personal  interest  or  a  partisan  sympathy.     The  importance  that  the 
decision   should  be  right  because  of  the  interest  or  the  solemnity  of  the 
duty  which  is  involved,  and  the  sensitive  apprehension  that  unfaithfulness 
or  error  may  occur,  all  seem  to  justify  the  warmth  and  earnestness  with 
which  men  espouse  one  side  or  the  other  of  a  doubtful  or  disputed  question. 
Hence  the  special  temptations  to  partisanship  in  respect  to  disputed  ques- 
tions in  religion  or  politics,  or  social  or  individual  claims  to  rights  or  privi- 
leges.   The  importance  of  the  interest  with  which  the  controversy  has  to 


264  ELEMENTS  OF  MOBAL   SCIENCE.  [§  123. 

do,  the  number  and  apparent  strength  of  the  reasons  which  can  be  given 
for  any  opinion,  the  skill  and  eloquence  and  wit  with  which  any  conclusion 
can  be  urged,  all  furnish  the  means  and  the  temptation  for  a  partisan  bias, 
in  which  the  personal  integrity  is  liable  to  suffer,  and  the  worst  cause  to 
receive  undeserved  support. 

Not  a  few  ethical  teachers  and  ghostly  advisers  enjoin  no  duty  so  ear- 
nestly and  fervently  as  the  duty  of  a  blind  and  intolerant  zeal  of  assertion 
and  action,  in  any  cause  to  which  they  are  devoted.  Perhaps  no  duty 
needs  to  be  more  earnestly  inculcated  than  the  duty  of  fairness  of  mind 
in  forming  opinions  in  respect  to  disputed  questions  in  practical  morals, 
these  being  viewed  in  their  widest  range  as  embracing  the  entire  range  of 
social  as  well  as  individual  actions. 

§  123.  The  duty  of  tolerance  in  respect  to  those  opinions  of  other  men 
which  we  reject  for  ourselves  is  also  of  prime  importance. 
0  erance  j^  ^^  simply  the  duty  of  charitably  interpreting  the  consid- 

erations that  occupy  their  minds,  thus  putting  ourselves  in 
their  place.  The  duty  is  enjoined  by  that  simple  justice  which  requires  U8 
to  bethink  ourselves  of  the  readiness  with  which  men  may  occupy  their 
minds  with  only  one  side  of  an  argument.  Tolerance  also  is  the  only 
condition  of  successful  discussion  and  fruitful  controversy.  It,  and  it 
alone,  secures  the  fairness  of  statement,  the  courtesy  of  criticism,  the  mild- 
ness of  retort,  the  responsive  sympathy,  the  inextinguishable  sense  of  jus- 
tice, which  prompt  the  most  unjust  of  men  to  decide  for  the  right,  when 
justice  alone  is  appealed  to,  provided  their  passions  or  partisausliip  be  not 
aroused. 

Dogmatism  and  browbeating  in  assertion  and  reply,  and  simple  effront- 
ery in  maintaining  our  opinion  when  silenced  or  repelled,  are,  in  the  su- 
preme sense,  immoral  and  demoralizing,  as  well  as  in  fearfully  bad  taste, 
for  any  man  who  professes  to  reason  or  to  think. 

To  the  beneficent  effect  of  tolerance,  however,  it  is  essential  that  it 
should  be  limited  to  those  points  in  respect  to  which  it  is 
Limited  conceded  that  a  disputed  question  of  duty  can  arise.    For  a 

qnestions.  ™^^  ^^^°  denies  duty  altogether  to  ask  for  tolerance  or  chari- 
table judgment  in  respect  to  whether  this  or  that  action 
should  hold  or  yield  the  field  when  the  two  come  in  conflict,  seems  a  sim- 
ple contradiction  of  terms.  To  such  a  claim,  the  only  possible  response  is 
found  in  the  position  that  the  two  disputants  cannot  discuss  questions  con- 
cerning relations  in  which  the  one  party  believes  and  which  the  other 
denies.  Hence  the  axioms  of  conscience  should  always  bo  assorted  by 
those  who  believe  them  with  no  stint  of  earnestness,  with  no  abatement  of 
fervor,  and  no  cowardice  in  personal  appeal.  The  commanding  duties, 
also,  to  which  every  man  is  supposed  to  assent,  the  wakeful  truths  whit^h 
never  slumber,  are  always  to  b<!  affirmed  with  confidence  aud  zeal  by  every 
man  who  would  do  justice  to  his  convictions  or  be  true  to  hia  couscieuce. 


§  123.]    CASES   OF  CONSCIENCE,    CASUISTRY,   ETC,         265 

No  mistake  can  be  so  serious,  though  none  may  be  more  frequently- 
made,  than  to  confound  the  duty  of  tolerating  differences  of  opinion  in 
respect  to  doubtful  questions  of  duty,  with  the  duty  of  earnestly  express- 
ing a  positive  faith  in  fundamental  moral  distinctions,  and  a  positive  dis- 
sent from  the  denial  of  such  distinctions.  But  these  distinctions  concern 
the  intentions  and  purposes,  and  the  great  moralities  of  action  which  are 
assumed  to  be  the  uniform  and  necessary  manifestations  of  such  purposes. 
It  is  only  in  respect  to  doubtful  questions  respecting  external  actions,  that 
tolerance  is  possible  or  is  called  for. 

This  duty  of  tolerance  is  grounded  on  the  clear  conviction  that  men  are 
likely  to  differ  in  opinion  in  respect  to  the  right  and  wrong  of  actions  as 
the  exi^ressions  of  the  inner  purposes;  and,  for  this  reason,  they  ought  to 
respect  the  liberty  of  one  another  in  such  differences,  whether  these  respect 
practical  and  personal  ethics,  or  public  and  political  partisanship. 

Tolerance  and  toleration  have  also  a  technical  significance  when  applied 

to  the  attitude  of  a  government,  in  respect  to  opinions  which 

are  deemed  incompatible  with  such  religious  or  political  or    .^  ^J^  '*'".'  , 

,  ,    ,  ,  , .  .     ,    in  its  special 

ethical  doctrines  as  are  deemed  dangerous  to  the  political    meaning. 

future  of  either  state  or  church  or  school,  or  injurious  to  the 
morals  of  the  citizens.  Thus  applied,  toleration  signifies  abstinence  from 
judicial  interference  with  the  propagation  of  such  doctrines,  and  also  from 
social  persecution.  Such  toleration  is  urged  on  grounds  of  duty  or  expe- 
diency, one  or  both.  It  need  not  be  said  that  tolerance,  in  this  sense,  has 
grown  very  slowly,  and  is  very  far  from  being  matured  or  perfected. 

The  wisdom  and  duty  of  toleration,  as  thus  conceived,  should  never  be 
abused  in  any  way  to  the  sanction  of  practical  indifference  to  moral  truth, 
or  to  the  denial  of  personal  responsibility  in  asserting  one's  convictions, 
not  only  in  respect  to  the  fundamental  principles  of  ethical  truth,  but, 
also,  in  respect  to  their  applications  in  many  cases  where  men  seriously 
•  differ.  Earnestness  and  zeal  and  courage,  in  the  assertion  of  ethical  con- 
victions, is  often  misnamed  "  intolerance."  Taken  in  this  sense,  the  truth 
has  great  significance,  that  *'  the  only  true  spirit  of  tolerance  consists  in 
our  conscientious  toleration  of  each  other's  intolerance.  Whatever  pre- 
tends to  more  than  this  is  either  the  unthinking  cant  of  fashion,  or  the 
soul-falsifying  narcotic  of  moral  or  religious  indifference."  —  Coleridge, 
The  Friend,  Essay  xiii. 


266  ELEMENTS  OF  MOBAL  SCIENCE.  [§  124. 


CHAPTER  XVIII. 

THE  CHRISTIAN  THEORY  OF  MORALS. 

§  124.  We  limit  our  discussion  to  the  theory  of  morals  which 
Our  concern  ^^  ^^^  ^°  ^^®  -^^^  Testament.  Our  concern  with 
nith  this        it  is  speculative.     We  do  not  emphasize,  although 

theory  is  i      i       . ,  .      ,       ,  .  -, 

specuiatiye      ^^   ^^   i^ot   Overlook,   the   practical   elevation   and 
only.  purity  of  many  of  its  special  rules  of  feeling  and 

conduct,  inasmuch  as  these  are  generally  acknowledged.  All 
considerate  men  are  unanimous  in  the  opinion,  that  the  Christian 
morality  as  a  practical  code  was  singularly  elevated  and  pure 
for  its  time,  and  that  the  general  spirit  of  its  teachings  in  re- 
spect to  unselfishness  and  unworldliness,  temperance  and  unflesh- 
liness,  meekness  and  forgiveness,  has  never  been  surpassed, 
either  by  an  earlier  or  a  later  single  teacher  or  school  of  teachers. 
We  do  not,  in  our  argument,  assume  supernatural 
naturalistic  authority  for  the  Master  of  its  school,  nor  ask  any 
po  n  o  V  ew.  f jj^yo^able  judgment  for  his  teachings  from  his  pre- 
sumed divine  authority  or  his  winning  graciousness  of  spirit. 
We  take  the  Christian  system  as  we  find  it,  and  compare  it 
with  the  other  theories  which  preceded  and  followed  it,  simply 
in  respect  to  its  theoretic  merits,  as  tried  by  the  ordinary  tests 
of  any  speculative  theory  of  practical  duties.  These  are, 
logical  consistency,  harmony  with  the  nature  of  man,  and  a 
capacity  for  adjustment  to  the  varying  needs  of  individuals, 
and  the  possible  or  probable  growth  and  development  of  human 
society.     We   do   not  forget   that  Christianity  is   on  its  face 


§  124.]        THE  CHRISTIAN  THEOEY  OF  MORALS.  267 

conspicuously  a  religious  system,  and  derives  its  motives  and 
finds  its  autliority  in  an  historic  personage  ;  but  we 
contend  that  the  teachings,  the  example,  and   the  etwcai 
sanctions  of  this  personage  are  also  distinctively  and  ^e«a«se 

religious. 

sharply  ethical.     Nor  do  we  deny  that  these  ethical 
teachings  and  motives  are  presented  in  a  form  which  is  emi- 
nently unscholastic  and  informal.     But  we  contend  none  the 
less,  that  these  teachinojs  and  motives  embody  and  „  ^    ^ 

'  =>  "^  Not  scho- 

enforce  a  speculative  system  which  can  be  definitely  lastic,  but 
formulated,  and  which,  as  speculatively  wise  and  ^**^"  ^^' 
practically  useful  and  trustworthy,  is  adequate  to  all  the  pos- 
sible exigencies  of  the  future.  These  principles  when  studied 
in  the  light  of  other  theories,  and  re-phrased  and  re-stated  in 
the  language  of  the  schools,  constitute  the  comprehensive  and 
fundamental  truths  of  a  definite  system. 

It  should  not  be  forgotten,  however,  that  any  system  of 
ethics  must  necessarily  be  limited  in  respect  to  the  certainty 
and  positiveness  and  range  of  its  teachings.  Its  fundamental 
principles  and  its  positive  rules  are  necessarily  but  few.  These 
may  be  said  to  be  axiomatic  and  self-evident.  The  most  of  its 
special  rules  must  be  probable  in  their  authority,  and  admit  of 
exceptions  in  their  application.  These  points  have  been  abun- 
dantly established  in  our  previous  discussions.  In  view  of  these 
principles,  it  would  seem,  that,  if  the  Christian  system  of  ethics 
is  adapted  for  man,  we  ought  not  to  expect  to  find  in  it  any 
authority  or  completeness  which  would  take  it  out  of  the  range 
of  human  adaptations.  Its  very  uncertainty  and  indefiniteness, 
its  flexible  and  progressive  character,  may  be  arguments  for  its 
human  excellence ;  inasmuch  as  they  prove  its  more  complete 
fitness  for  individual  and  social  needs,  and  its  restrictions  of 
the  human  ideal  to  that  which  is  necessarily  variable  and  pro- 
gressive. "VVe  also  premise,  once  for*  all,  that  we  do  not  sharply 
contrast  the  New  Testament  with  the  Old,  or  the  Christian  with 
the  Hebrew  ethics.  We  shall  in  our  discussion  treat  the  two 
as  one,  and  the  Christian  as  the  consummation  of  the  Hebrew 


268  ELEMENTS  OF  MOBAL   SCIENCE.         [§§  125-7. 

system,  reserving  some  explanation  as  to  the  possibility  of  prog- 
ress and  development  in  both  (§§  142,  143). 

§  125.    (1)  The  first  principle  which  we  notice  is,  that  right 
and  wrong  are  affirmed  of   the  purpose  or  inten- 

Moral  dis-  .  „^,  .  .,,,•!,,  .,. 

tinctJonsper.  tio"-  '' Whosocvcr  IS  angry  with  his  brother  with- 
taintothe       q^^;  j^  cause  shall  be  in  danger  of  the  judgment*' 

intentions. 

(Matt.  V.  22).  "  Whosoever  hateth  his  brother  is 
a  murderer"  (1  John  iii.  15).  "Whosoever  looketh  on  a 
woman  to  lust  after  her  hath  committed  adultery  with  her 
already  in  his  heart"  (Matt.  v.  28). 

§  126.    (2)   Moral  distinctions  pertain  to   the    intentions    as 
expressino-  the  character.    "A  2;ood  man  out  of  the 

As  express-  j.  o  o 

ing  tiie  good  treasure  of  his  heart  bringeth  forth  that  which 

character.       j^  ^^^^^ .  ^^^  ^^  ^^.j  ^^^  ^^^  ^^  ^j^^  ^^^^  treasure  of 

his  heart  bringeth  forth  that  which  is  evil ;  for  of  the  abun- 
dance of  the  heart  his  mouth  speaketh  "  (Luke  vi.  45).  "  And 
though  I  bestow  all  my  goods  to  feed  the  poor,  and  though  I 
give  my  body  to  be  burned,  and  have  not  charity,  it  profiteth 
me  nothing"  (1  Cor.  xiii.  3).  "For  whosoever  shall  keep  the 
whole  law,  and  yet  offend  in  one  point,  he  is  guilty  of  all" 
(Jas.  ii.  10). 

§  127.  (3)  A  good  purpose,  proceeding  from  a  good  char- 
Manifested  acter,  will  be  manifested  in  good  actions.  "  If  a 
in  actions.  brother  or  sister  be  naked,  and  destitute  of  daily 
food,  and  one  of  you  say  unto  them,  Depart  in  peace,  be  ye 
warmed  and  filled ;  notwithstanding  ye  give  them  not  those 
things  which  are  needful  to  the  body;  what  doth  it  profit? 
Even  so  faith,  if  it  hath  not  works,  is  dead,  being  alone.  .  .  . 
Seest  thou  how  faith  wrought  with  his  works,  and  by  works  was 
faith  made  perfect  ?  .  .  .  For  as  the  body  withoutt  he  spirit  is 
dead,  so  faith  without  works  is  dead  also"  (Jas.  ii.  15,  16, 
22,  24).  "And  then  will  I  profess 'unto  them,  I  never  knew 
you  :  depart  from  me,  ye  workers  of  iniquity"  (Matt.  vii.  23). 

Hence  no  conflict  is  recognized  as  possible  between  a  good 
intention  with  virtuous  affections,  and  good  actions.     The  one 


§§  128,  129.]    THE  CHRISTIAN   THEORY  OF  MORALS.       269 

will  necessarily  and  inevitably  manifest  itself  by  the  other. 
The  good  man  out  of  the  good  treasure  of  his  heart  certainly 
and  necessarily  bringeth  forth  good  things.  Contrariwise, 
good  deeds  without  the  intention,  the  affection,  the  honest  heart, 
are  morally  worthless.  ''  Though  I  bestow  all  my  goods  to 
feed  the  poor,  .  .  .  and  have  not  charity,  it  profiteth  me 
nothing"  (1  Cor.  xiii.  3).  "Out  of  the  heart  proceed  evil 
thoughts,  murders,  adulteries,  fornications,  thefts,  false  wit- 
nesses, blasphemies  :  these  are  the  things  which  defile  a  man  ; 
but  to  eat  with  unwashen  hands  defileth  not  a  man ' '  (Matt. 
XV.  19). 

§  128.   (4)  Moral   distinctions   are    not    originated    by   the 
divine  statute,  but  are  founded  on  the   nature   of 
man.     "  For  when  the  Gentiles,  which  have  not  the  ated  by  the 
law,  do  by  nature  the  things  contained  in  the  law,   ^*^"'^  <^o™" 
these,  having  not  the  law,  are  a  law  unto  themselves  : 
which  show  the  work  of  the  law  written  in  their  hearts ;  their 
conscience  also  bearing  witness,  and  their  thoughts  the  mean 
while  accusing  or  else  excusing  one   another"   (Rom.  ii.   14, 
15).     "  Yea,  and  why  even  of  yourselves  judge  ye  not  what  is 
right?"  (Luke  xii.  57.) 

§  129.   (5)  The  moral  law  taught  by  nature  is  re-enforced 
by  the  primal   authority  of   God.     This  truth  will 
not  be  questioned  by  any  man  who  reads  the  New  enforced 
Testament.     It  abounds  in  commands  and  threat-  **^*** 
enings,  uttered  in  the  name  of  God,  as   supreme   motives  to 
right  feeling  and  action.     It  were  useless  to  cite  distinct  decla- 
rations of   this  import  and  to  this   effect.     In   the  variety  of 
these  commands,  and  the  freedom  and  positiveness  with  which 
they  are  reiterated,  not  the  slightest  suspicion  is  betrayed  that 
the  ethical  obligation  imposed  by  conscience   is  weakened   or 
divided  by  the  authority  of  the  divine  command  or  its  promised 
rewards  and  threatened  punishments.     The  apparent  paradox 
is  boldly  accepted  and  indorsed  in  the  comprehensive  precept, 
"  Be  ye  therefore  perfect  as  your  Father  in  heaven  is  perfect " 


270  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL  SCIENCE^  [§  130. 

(Matt.  V.  48).     "He  that   in  these  things  serveth  CJirist  is 
acceptable  to  God,  and  approved  of  men*'  (Rom.  xiv.  18). 
§  130.   (6)  The  principle  is  implied,  that  there  need  be  no 
inconsistency  between  the  appeal  to  conscience  by 
love  of  ethical  motives,  and  the  appeal  to  the  natural  desire 

app  ness.  ^^  well-being  or  happiness.  This  doctrine  has  been 
most  earnestly  controverted,  by  many  able  ethical  writers. 
The  unquestioned  fact  that  Christianity  makes  and  sanctions 
such  an  appeal  has  been  made  the  ground  of  objection  to  its 
divine  origin  and  its  permanent  authority.  Its  assailants  have 
urged  the  following  in  a  manifold  variety  and  plausibility  of 
phraseology  :  Virtue,  to  be  genuine,  must  be  disinterested  ;  i.e., 
it  must  be  loved  for  its  own  sake.  If  it  is  loved  for  its  own 
sake,  any  motives  superadded  must  be  either  superfluous  or  mer- 
cenary. If  I  am  moved  by  a  genuine  love  for  moral  excellence, 
the  fact  that  God  commands  me  to  choose,  and  will  reward  or 
punish  me  for  obedience  or  the  contrary,  can  add  no  force  to 
these  supreme  attractions,  or  whatever  force  it  adds  must  be 
either  corrupting,  inferior,  or  superfluous  ^  (§§  129,  130) .  It  was 
with  reference  to  this  question,  that  Butler  discussed  the  relation 
of  the  desire  of  happiness,  or  what  is  called  self-love,  to  ethical 
motives.  These  objections  and  difficulties  can  only  be  success- 
fully set  aside  by  the  satisfactory  adjustment  of  the  question. 
It  is  not  enough,  however,  to  show  that  no  conflict  ought  to 
exist  between  man's  susceptibility  to  moral  relations,  and  his 
natural  desire  of  well-being  in  any  and  every  form  (§  67).  It 
should  also  be  contended,  that,  while  religious  motives  super- 
added are  not  inconsistent  with  the  ethical,  they  are  personal, 
and  therefore  additional  in  their  force.  Inasmuch  also  as 
religious  relations  and  susceptibilities  crown  and  complete  the 
nature  of  man,  a  completed  morality  should  both  require,  and 
respond  to,  a  religion  which  recognizes  and  enforces  these 
personal  influences.^ 

1  Critique  of  Practical  Reason.    F.  P.  Cobbe,  Intuitive  Morals :  Loudon 
and  Boston;  Religious  Duty :  London. 


§  130.]        THE  CHBISTIAN  THEORY  OF  MORALS.  271 

Kant,  as  is  well  known,  takes  the  most  positive  ground 
against  any  appeal  to  this  desire  of  happiness  as  unethical,  and 
declares  in  the  strongest  terms  that  any  use  of  motives  addressed 
to  the  sensibilities  is  intolerable.  And  yet  he  contends  that  the 
conviction  that  happiness  is  the  fit  reward  of  virtue  is  itself  a 
moral  imperative,  which  requires  and  justifies  the  belief  in  God 
as  a  moral  ruler,  and  administrator  of  reward  and  punishment. 
Many  of  the  modern  rejecters  of  Christianity,  and  not  a  few 
of  its  professed  defenders,  repeat  this  fundamental  position, 
and  apply  it  with  a  more  complete  consistency  than  Kant ;  re- 
jecting with  a  kind  of  ethical  disdain,  or  a  ferocity  of  pride,  the 
need  of  any  influences  from  hope  or  fear  of  the  favor  or  dis- 
pleasure of  a  personal  Deity.  ^ 

Whatever  may  be  thought  of  the  soundness  and  elevation 
of  the  principle  itself,  the  fact  cannot  be  denied  that  the  Chris- 
tian ethics  not  only  recognize  but  enforce  the  moral  propriety 
of  rewards  and  threatenings,  as  an  incitement  to  vii'tue  and  a 
determent  from  vice. 

It  is  equally  manifest,  that  the  style  of  virtue  which  Chris- 
tianity proposes  for  man's  adoption,  and  enforces  Thoroughly 
by  these  motives,  is  the  most  thorough-going  in  its  ""seiflsh. 
unselfishness,  and  the  most  disinterested  in  its  spirit,  of  any 
ideal  virtue  that  has  ever  been  conceived  by  man.     Whatever 
may  be  thought  of  the  speculative  inconsistency  between  the 
loftiness  of  its  ideal,  and  the  alleged  interestedness  of  the  mo- 
tives by  which  it  is  enforced,  it  cannot  be  denied  that  the  two 
are  intimately  conjoined,  and  earnestly  enforced  in  jj^j^j^^j  ^^a 
the  system  itself.  personal  mo- 

There  are  those  who  find  in  the  confident  assur-  o/being* 
ance  with  which  Christianity  recognizes  and  employs  harmonized, 
both  classes  of   motives,  the  ethical  and  the  so-called  pathe- 

1  J.  G.  Fichte  affirms,  "  Jede  Handluug  aus  Hoffnung  des  Lohnes  oder 
Furcht  der  Strafe  ist  absolut  unmoralisch;  "  and  Schleiermacher,  "  Furcht 
und  Hoffnung  sind  selbst  sinnliche  Motive  und  diese  sollen  ja  edler 
bekampft  werden.    Sie  sind  gewaltige  Krafte  aber  unsittliche." 


272  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL   SCIENCE.  [§  131. 

matic  and  personal,  and  the  energy  with  which  it  enforces  each, 
an  incidental  proof  of  its  profound  sagacity,  as,  also,  of  the 
intrinsic  truthfulness  of  the  ethical  system  itself.  Possibly 
this  apparent  paradox  may  be  an  evidence  that  the  system 
which  enforces  both  is  the  product  of  supernatural  wisdom. 

"  But  it  would,  at  the  least,  seem  evident  that  the  Scriptures  recognize 
fully  that  happiness  is  not  merely  the  desire  of  mankind,  but  the  legitimate 
desire.  All  their  commandments  are  '  commandments  with  promise,'  ex- 
pressed or  implied;  and  their  religion  is  a  religion  of  personal  gratitude  and 
hope.  One  of  their  most  characteristic  words  is  .  .  .  the  word  '  blessed.* 
Blessedness,  indeed,  may  be  distinguished  from  happiness,  but  only  as 
expressing  a  higher  degree  or  kind  of  it ;  and,  for  the  purposes  of  the  present 
argument,  the  distinction  is  unimportant.  The  keynote  of  the  Psalms  is 
struck  in  the  first  verse,  'Blessed  is  the  man  that  walketh  not  in  the 
counsel  of  the  ungodly.'  But  the  teaching  of  our  Lord  is  the  most  con- 
si)icuous  of  all  examples  of  this  characteristic.  The  service  or  the  results 
which  are  recognized  as  the  embodiment  of  his  moral  teaching  are  based, 
from  beginning  to  end,  on  this  principle.  It  commences  with  a  series  of 
beatitudes;  it  ends  with  the  assurance  that  the  observance  of  his  words 
will  be  followed  by  permanent  security:  '  Whoso  heareth  these  sajungs  of 
mine,  and  doeth  them,  I  will  liken  him  unto  a  wise  man  which  built  his 
house  upon  a  rock.'  The  keynote  of  Christ's  morality  is  blessing.  He  is 
the  greatest  of  all  preachers  of  self-sacrifice.  But  how  does  he  recommend 
it?  ' He  that  saveth  his  life  shall  lose  it;  but  he  that  loseth  his  life  for  my 
sake  and  the  gospel's,  the  same  shall  save  it/  These  are  the  very  words 
which  command  self-sacrifice,  and  yet  they  sanction  the  instinct  of  self- 
preservation.  It  would  be  difficult  to  name  a  single  passage  from  the 
gospel,  in  which  self-sacrifice  is  recommended,  without  reference  to  an 
ultimate  blessing  as  the  result;  and  such,  at  all  events,  must  have  been  the 
impression  left  on  the  mind  of  the  apostle,  who  commences  his  epistle 
with  the  words,  '  These  things  write  we  unto  you,  that  your  joy  may  be 
liiW.'  "  —  Christianity  and  Morality,  by  Henry  D.  Wace,  D.D.,  1877;  pp 
24,  25. 

§  131.  (7)  Another  principle  of  Christian  ethics,  which  de- 
BcncToience  serves  notice,  is  the  doctrine  that  benevolence,  or 
comprehends  moral  lovc,  Comprehends  and  enforces  every  duty 
from  man  which  man  owes  to  his  fellow-man  (§  20G).  No  single 
toman.  principle  is  asserted  in  terms  that  are  at  once   so 

philosophical  in  form  and  unequivocal  in  their  import  as  the 
following:  ''Owe  no  man  any  thing,  but  to  love  one  another; 


§  132.]        THE  CHRISTIAN  THEORY  OF  MORALS.  273 

for  he  that  loveth  another  hath  fulfilled  the  law.  For  this, 
Thou  shalt  not  commit  adultery,  Thou  shalt  not  kill,  Thou  shalt 
not  steal,  Thou  shalt  not  bear  false  witness.  Thou  shalt  not 
covet ;  and  if  there  be  any  other  commandment,  it  is  briefly 
comprehended  in  this  saying,  namely.  Thou  shalt  love  thy 
neighbor  as  thyself.  Love  worketh  no  ill  to  his  neighbor : 
therefore  love  is  the  fulfilling  of  the  law  "  (Rom.  xiii.  8-10). 

No  question  has  been  more  earnestly  debated,  in  the  schools 
of  speculative  morality,  than  the  question  whether  benevolence 
includes  and  enforces  all  the  special  duties  which  man  owes  to 
his  fellow-man.  Some  have  contended,  that  though  the  obliga- 
tions of  justice,  veracity,  and  gratitude  may  be  re-enforced  by 
the  general  duty  of  benevolence,  yet  they  are  enforced  origin- 
ally by  other  and  independent  grounds  of  authority.  The 
teachings  of  Christianity  upon  this  point  seem  to  be  unequivo- 
cal and  decisive.  First,  benevolence  is  distinctly  recognized 
as  comprehending  and  enforcing  all  the  duties  which  man  owes 
to  man.  "This  is  the  first  and  great  commandment;  and  the 
second  is  like  unto  it.  Thou  shalt  love  thy  neighbor  as  thyself. 
On  these  two  commandments  hang  all  the  law  and  the  prophets  " 
(Matt.  xxii.  38,  39).  "If  there  be  any  other  commandment,  it 
is  briefly  comprehended  "  —  i.e.,  generalized  and  provided  for  — 
under  this  saying,  "  Thou  shalt  love  thy  neighbor  as  thyself  ;  '* 
"Love  is  the  fulfilling  of  the  law"  (Rom.  xiii.  9,  10).  Second, 
the  duties  of  justice  and  truth  are  distinctly  enforced  on  grounds 
of  benevolence  ;  and  no  other  general  or  special  ground  is  rec- 
ognized as  actual,  or  implied  as  possible.  "Owe  no  man  any 
thing,  but  to  love  one  another  "  (Rom.  xiii.  8).  "  Wherefore, 
putting  away  lying,  speak  every  man  truth  with  his  neighbor ; 
for  we  are  members  one  of  another"  (Eph.  iv.  25).    xiiisbenevo. 

§  132.  (8)  The  benevolence  taught  and  exempli-  lent-e  emi- 
fled   in   the  Christian   ethics   is   at   once  the  most  ^nd  dihinter- 
refined  in  its  emotional  quality,  and  extreme  in  its  ®'**®**- 
disinterestedness.     So  far  as  its  inner  spirit  is  concerned,  it 
has   introduced   and   made   familiar   to   the  human   race   new 


274  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL  SCIENCE.  [§  132. 

conceptions  of  what  is  possible  in  the  emotions  and  affections  of 
man.  With  the  practical  consequences  of  this  new  sentiment, 
we  are  not  concerned  :  we  notice  only  those  consequences  which 
have  affected  the  ethical  theories  of  Christendom.  We  turn, 
first  of  all,  to  the  new  type  of  benevolence  as  described  in  that 
familiar  exposition  of  charity  which  has  invested  the  term  itself 
with  a  special  import,  at  least  in  English  speech.  This  import 
is  not  limited  to  ethical  and  religious  teachings,  nor  to  religious 
or  theological  terminology.  It  has  passed  into  literature,  ele- 
vating and  enlarging  the  ideals  of  human  excellence,  and  making 
them  familiar  in  the  characters  and  sentiments  of  imaginative 
writings  of  every  description.  No  contrast  between  ancient 
and  modern  literature  is  more  striking  than  in  this  particular. 
When  Portia  urges,  — 

**  The  quality  of  mercy  is  not  strained: 

.  .  .  it  is  twice  blessed; 
It  blesseth  him  that  gives,  and  him  that  takes,"  — 

she  gives  expression  to  the  same  spirit  which  is  echoed  in 
those  words  of  the  Master,  which  a  Christian  apostle  enjoins 
his  friends  continually  to  remember,  as  ''the  words  of  the 
Lord  Jesus,  how  he  said.  It  is  more  blessed  to  give  than  to 
receive.'*  This  saying  seems  to  have  floated  of  itself  along 
the  stream  of  Christian  tradition :  it  was  so  beautiful  and 
strange,  that,  when  heard,  it  could  not  be  forgotten.  But  we 
find  no  such  sentiment  in  pagan  literature,  as  the  expression 
of  the  best  established  ethical  ideals  of  ancient  life.  If,  in 
Oriental  poetry  and  fiction,  we  often  find  intense  sympathy  with 
suffering  and  sorrow,  it  is  violent  and  uncertain,  quixotic  and 
sentimental ;  showing  that  it  does  not  spring  out  of  the  prevail- 
ing practical  sentiments  of  the  people,  as  the  bright  consummate 
flower  of  a  deep  root  of  sober  consent  and  conviction,  but  is 
ever  the  hot-house  growth  of  a  mystical  quixotism.  Compare 
Edwin  Arnold's  "Light  of  Asia"  with  the  thousand  tales  of 
practical  Christian  self-sacrifice,  and  the  ten  thousand  unwrit- 


§  132.]        THE  CHRISTIAN  THEOBY  OF  MORALS.  275 

ten  stories  which  have  been  enacted  in  Christian  communities 
and  Christian  homes. ^ 

Not  only  is  the  quality  of  the  benevolence  which  Christianity 
proposes  and  prescribes  thus  refined  and  idealized,  j^^  ^^^^.^ 
but  the  energy  of  its  disinterestedness  is  altogether  specially 
unique  and  peculiar.  It  teaches,  in  all  sobriety  and 
force,  "  We  ought  to  lay  down  our  lives  for  the  brethren.  But 
whoso  hath  this  world's  good,  and  seeth  his  brother  have 
need,  and  shutteth  up  his  bowels  of  compassion  from  him, 
how  dwelleth  the  love  of  God  in  him?"  (1  John  iii.  16,  17.) 
"  Let  us  not  love  in  word,  neither  in  tongue,  but  in  deed  and 
in  truth"  (1  John  iii.  18).  ''If  a  man  say  I  love  God,  and 
hateth  his  brother,  he  is  a  liar.  For  he  that  loveth  not  his 
brother  whom  he  hath  seen,  how  can  he  love  God  whom  he  hath 
not  seen?"  (1  John  iv.  20.)  This  extreme  of  disinterestedness 
in  external  action  was  in  its  way  as  novel  and  peculiar  as  was  the 
quality  of  the  emotions  which  animated  and  impelled  it.  Under 
the  pagan  theory,  men  could  die  for  their  friends,  their  kindred, 
and  their  country,  under  the  motives  which  the  affections  for 
either  and  all  might  furnish.  But  the  comprehensive  duty  of 
self-sacrifice  for  our  fellow-men  was  never  enforced  and  recog- 
nized as  the  controlling  law  of  one's  active  powers,  as  it  is  in 
the  Christian  system.  The  family,  the  friendly,  and  the  patriotic 
impulses  were  recoornized  as  noble  and  as  duty-en- 

The  cross. 

forcing  motives  ;  but  their  motive  power  was  derived 

from  something  short  of  the  relations  of  human  brotherhood, 

1  To  guard,  once  for  all,  against  the  objection  that  the  proposed  limits 
of  our  argument  should  exclude  any  consideration  of  the  practical  energy 
of  the  feelings  which  Christianity  stimulates  and  sanctions  in  actual  life, 
we  would  say  that  our  judgment  of  the  speculative  value  of  any  ethical 
system  may  be  affected  very  largely  by  the  relative  force  and  quality  of  the 
feelings  and  motives  which  it  sanctions  and  excites.  In  such  a  case,  the 
intellect  judges,  and  by  logical  rules ;  but  the  data  and  materials  with  which 
it  has  to  do  are  the  feelings,  or  rather  the  convictions  glowing  with  emotion, 
which,  in  the  present  case,  are  concerned  with  personal  beings,  i.e.,  with 
man  and  his  fellow-man. 


276  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL  SCIENCE.  [§  133. 

demanding  constant   self-sacrifice  in   imitation  of   that  single 

commanding  and   moving  example   to  which  all  Christendom 

perpetually  turns  as  its  symbol  and  inspiration. 

§  133.  (D).  We  have  already  recognized  the  truth,  that  the 

Christian  ethics  derive  their  quality  and  their  en- 
Take  their  *  .1  111-..  ,  .  ,. 
quality  from    ^^gy  from  the  personal  and  religious  motives  which 

Christian        ^rc   peculiar  to  the   Christian   system,  —  with  the 
motlTes.  ^  -^  ' 

effects,  rather  than  with  the  forces  or  agencies  which 

produce  them.     These  effects  are  ethical  in  the  double  form  of 

new  ideals  of  character  and  conduct,  and  new  precepts  in  which 

these  are  declared  and  enforced.     So  far  as  the  Christian  type 

of  benevolence  is  peculiar  in  its  energy  and  reach, 

types  of  he-      ^*  "^"^^  necessarily  modify  the  Christian  doctrine  of 

nevoience.       justice.     Justice  is  the  rendering  to  each  man  his 
Justice.  *^  ^ 

due  or  his  right.  Subjectively,  this  sense  of  justice 
could  not  fail  to  be  quickened  and  purified  by  Christian  motives 
and  examples.  Objectively,  Christianity  has  elevated  the  rights 
of  individual  men  into  importance  by  the  new  conceptions  which 

it  enforces  of  the  estimate  in  which  they  are  held 
the  value  of  ^J  t'^iG  living  and  personal  God  who  is  revealed,  in 
the  Individ-     ^nd  by  Christ,  as  the  Saviour  of  the  human  race. 

nal  man. 

These  conceptions  respect  the  dignity  and  worth 
of  the  individual,  and  every  thing  which  pertains  to  him, — the 
substantial  equality  of  all  men,  the  sacredness  of  human  rights, 
the  inviolability  of  human  personality,  and  the  value  of  human 
life.  These  new  or  newly  energized  conceptions  could  not  but 
affect  the  legislation  and  the  manners  of  all  Christendom.  The 
modern  doctrines  of  personal  liberty  and  of  rights,  involving  as 
they  do  the  recognition  of  political  equality  between  man  and 
man,  have,  in  fact,  been  the  growths  of  Christian  ideas.  It  is 
doubtful  whether  these  principles  could  survive  a  theory  which 
should  abandon  this  faith  in  God's  personal  rule  and  in  man's 
personal  moral  responsibility,  in  which  they  originated.  In- 
deed, the  indications  are  more  than  manifest,  that  the  new 
theories  of  evolution,  with  the  ethical  and  sociological  applica- 


§  133.]        THE  CBBISTIAN  THEORY  OF  MORALS.  277 

tions  of  the  same,  tend  most  rapidly  to  an  unfeeling  and  cruel 
contempt  for  individual  interests,  under  the  pressure  of  tlie  great 
ocean-tide  of  tendency  which  is  recognized  as  resistless  and 
supreme.  How  much  soever  this  doctrine  of  agnostic  evolution 
may  borrow  without  acknowledgment  from  the  Christian  doc- 
trine of  altruism,  it  has  little  promise  and  little  comfort  for  the 
individual  lives  which  it  must  ingulf  with  every  movement  of 
its  advancing  waves. 

The  obligations  to  uprightness  and  veracity  liave  also  received 
new  prominence  and  energy  from  the  enforcement 
of  the  same  relations  between  man  and  God,  and,  as  to  justioeand 
a  consequence,  between  man  and  man.  So  soon  as  ^®^**^^  ^* 
men  are  recognized  as  belonging  to  a  common  moral  community 
under  the  rule  and  care  of  one  moral  Sovereign  and  Father  in 
heaven,  the  sensibility  to  truth  is  increased  by  love  to  man ; 
and  veracity  is  enforced  by  confidence  in  and  loyalty  toward 
tlie  moral  Sovereign  who  cares  for  truth,  and  is  ever  at  hand  to 
favor  and  defend  those  who  practise  it  in  his  name. 

From  the  same  faith  has  been  derived  the  quick  and  vivid 
sense  of  personal  honor  which  is  the  natural  product 
of  a  sense  of  that  personal  responsibility  which  is   sense  of 
founded  in  individual  freedom.    From  the  same  root 
has  grown  the  sense  of  the  unlawfulness  of  suicide,  and  the 
unworthiness  and  guilt  of   subjection  to  sensual  appetite  and 
sexual  lust. 

From  the  moment  that  the  Christian  faith  began  to  make 
itself  felt  as  an  ethical  force,  the  sense  of  personal  worth  and 
self-respect  on  the  part  of  man,  and  the  sense  of  personal 
purity  in  both  man  and  woman,  began  to  take  possession  of  the 
human  mind,  and  to  work  everywhere  like  leaven.  Both  were 
the  natural  and  necessary  consequences  of  the  newly  esteemed 
value  of  every  human  person  in  the  estimate  of  the  pitying  and 
loving  God  whose  Son  is  the  sympathizing  Redeemer  of  the 
human  race.  No  man  could  be  degraded  in  his  own  eyes,  or 
quietly  submit  to  be  dishonored  by  another  man,  who  believed 


278  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL   SCIENCE.  [§  133. 

himself  a  member  of  the  household  whom  God  had  thus  hon- 
ored. The  sense  of  self-respect  and  of  honor  could  not  fail  to 
be  stimulated  and  justified  on  the  part  of  every  man  for  himself, 
however  mean  his  station  or  limited  his  capacities.  The  con- 
sciousness of  natural  rights,  the  scornful  repudiation  of  bondage 
of  any  sort,  were  the  certain  consiequences  of  the  new  aspira- 
tions and  hopes  for  the  improvement  of  their  condition  on  the 
part  of  the  low-born  and  depressed.  Slavery  in  Christendom, 
in  all  its  forms,  began  to  disappear  with  the  acknowledgment 
of  Christ  as  the  one  Master ;  and,  though  it  often  re-appeared, 
was-  all  the  while  dying  a  lingering  death. 

The  feeling  of  honor  has  assumed  various  unnatural  phases, 
and  endured  manifold  caricatures,  as  in  the  intensified  and 
extravagant  sentiments  of  chivalry ;  but  whether  in  knight  or 
esquire,  in  nobleman  or  serf,  in  landlord  or  peasant,  it  has 
never  ceased  to  be  freshly  inspired  wherever  men  have  lived 
within  the  sound  of  the  bells  of  Christian  churches. 

The  estimate  of  sexual  purity  also,  with  all  that  is  associated 

with  it  in  manners  and  sentiment,  has  very  largely 

estimate  of      ^^°  ^hc  quiet  growth  of  the  leaven  of  self-control 

sexual  and  self-respect  and  personal  worth  which  are  the 

parity. 

legitimate  results  of  consecration  to  the  service  of 
a  blessed  Master,  and  of  the  associations  of  the  Christian  world 
with  her  also  who  was  "blessed  among  women.'*  Hence  the 
wonderful  contrast  between  Pagan  and  Christian  sentiment  in 
respect  to  a  point  which  is  vital  to  ethical  progress.  No  more 
striking  proof  can  be  furnished  of  the  part  which  Christian 
ideas  and  motives  have  had  in  elevating  the  conceptions  of 
Christian  morality  in  these  particulars,  than  is  found  in  the 
signs  of  degeneracy,  in  the  theories  of  anti-Christian  agnostics, 
in  respect  to  the  lawfulness  of  suicide,  and  the  practical  easiness 
of  some  in  respect  to  what  they  style  natural  physical  indul- 
gences ;  as  also  concerning  the  value  of  human  happiness, 
human  life,  and  human  rights,  with  multitudes  of  the  uncul- 
1  ired.     The  theory  which  derives  the  very  conceptions  of  duty 


§  134.]        Tn:E  CHRISTIAN  THEORY  OF  MORALS.  279 

and  responsibility  exclusively  from  social  sympathy  with  the 
community  personified  as  "the  tribal  self,"  can  find  no  sufficient 
security  that  the  notions  of  duty  will  become  more  refined,  and 
the  susceptibility  to  the  same  will  become  more  acute,  in  the 
resources  of  a  blind  tendency  to  evolution  and  progress. 

§  134.   (10)  The  Christian  ethics  regard  the  external  actions 
as  at  once  of  the  greatest  and  of  the  least  conse-   External  ac- 
quence.     By  this  cardinal  peculiarity  they  provide  *»<>»»  of  the 

greatest  and 

for  the  freedom  of  private  judgment,  for  toleration  least  conse- 
of  wide  differences  of  opinion  in  respect  to  ques-   *»"«'^««* 
tions  of  individual  duty,  and  for  progress  and  development  in 
public  and  private  codes  of  morality. 

First  of  all,  so  far  as  any  class  of  actions  can  have  but  one 
ethical  import,  and   indicate   but  one  intention  or  „     ... 

'■  Requisitions 

purpose,  their  language  is  imperative  and  uncom-  uncompro- 
promising.  "If  thy  hand  or  thy  foot  offend  thee,  ™*^^"^* 
cut  them  off,  and  cast  them  from  thee;"  "  And  if  thine  eye 
offend  thee,  pluck  it  out,  and  cast  it  from  thee."  (Matt.  viii. 
8,  9).  Whenever  an  action  is  a  sign  or  an  expression  of  the 
intent  or  purpose  of  duty,  it  is  recognized  as  of  the  utmost 
consequence.  In  such  cases  the  actions  must  be  performed  at 
any  sacrifice.  They  both  manifest  the  character,  and  by  mani- 
festing test  it.  No  excuse  is  admitted.  No  fear  of  conse- 
quences, no  personal  risk  or  loss,  even  of  life  itself,  is  allowed 
for  an  instant  as  a  reason  or  an  excuse  for  wrong-doing.  To 
plead  the  inner  purpose  or  desire  -^-  the  faith  or  the  love  —  as  a 
substitute  for  the  right  word  or  deed,  is  of  no  avail.  The  deed 
must  be  done,  cost  what  it  may.  "  Why  call  ye  me  Lord, 
Lord,  and  do  not  the  things  which  I  say  ?  " 

On  the  other  hand,  in  cases  when  the  act  is  not  regarded  by 
all  men  as  a  duty,  —  either  because  the  special  cir- 
cumstances do  not  require  it,  or  because  one  man  and  duty 
understands  their  import  better  than  another,  —  each  ^^  private 

judgment. 

man  must  follow  his  own  judgment,  and  make  that 

the  law  of  his  conscience.     Examples  of*  such  a  difference  of 


280  ELEMENTS  OF  MOBAL   SCIENCE.  [§  134. 

opinion  occurred  when  the  Christian  ethics  first  began  to  be 
applied  to  the  conduct  of  life.     Questions  of  practi- 

Example. 

cal  difficulty  arose  very  early,  which  distracted  and 
vexed  the  consciences  of  men,  occasioning  crimination  and  con- 
demnation on  the  one  side,  and  the  assertion  of  individual 
freedom  on  the  other.  The  flesh  of  slaughtered  animals  was 
exposed  for  sale,  after  having  been  previously  offered  in  sacri- 
fice upon  the  altar  of  an  idol.  Such  flesh  was  conceived  by 
some  (and  naturally  enough)  to  have  been  polluted  by  being 
thus  connected  with  the  worship  of  a  false  god.  Many  be- 
lievers as  naturally  and  honestly  refused  to  purchase  or  eat  of 
such  flesh,  regarding  the  use  of  it  as  immoral.  Others  saw  no 
harm  in  either  act,  inasmuch  as  neither  expressed  sympathy 
with  idol-worship  (Rom.  xiv.). 

The  difficulty  was  adjusted  by  declarations  which  are  good 
for  all  time,  and  which  assert  and  enforce  the  principle,  that,  in 
respect  to  many  important  questions  of  conduct,  each  individual 
must  be  allowed  to  form  and  hold  his  own  opinion,  and  is 
bound  to  act  in  accordance  with  it.  "  Hast  thou  faith?  have  it 
to  thyself  [as  an  honest  man]  before  God"  (Rom.  xiv.  22). 
''He  that  eateth,  eateth  to  the  Lord,  for  he  giveth  God  thanks ; 
and  he  that  eateth  not,  to  the  Lord  he  eateth  not,  and  giveth 
God  thanks"  (Rom.  xiv.  6).  "He  that  doubteth  [i.e.,  ques- 
tions whether  the  act  is  lawful]  is  condemned  if  he  eat,  because 
he  eateth  not  of  faith  [conviction] ;  for  whatsoever  is  not  of 
faith  [conviction]  is  sin"  (Rom.  xiv.  23).  "I  know,  and  am 
persuaded  by  the  Lord  Jesus,  that  there  is  nothing  unclean  of 
itself  [i.e.,  in  this  matter]  ;  but  to  him  that  esteemeth  any  thing 
to  be  unclean,  to  him  it  is  unclean"  (Rom.  xiv.  14).  This 
does  not  imply  that  all  external  actions  are  indifferent,  but 
rather  the  contrary.  It  only  declares  that  certain  actions  are 
discerned  to  be  right  or  wrong  according  as  each  man  discerns 
their  import  more  or  less  sagaciously,  or  has  attained  an  ampler 
or  more  limited  knowledge. 

It  should  be  observed,  that  the  right  of  private  judgment, 


§  135.]        THE  CHRISTIAN  THEORY  OF  MORALS.  281 

from  the  nature  of  the  case,  can  pertain  only  to  the  import  and 
the  exercise  of  external  actions.  It  can  never  reach  or  affect 
the  feelings  or  purposes.  In  respect  to  what  these  ought  to 
be,  the  judgments  of  all  men  are  presumed  to  be  the  same 
(§§72,76). 

Neither  the  Christian  nor  any  other  ethics   can   admit  the 
possibility  of  any  disagreement  in  respect  to  the  rules   jj^j^^  „|,ij.h 
for  the  intentions  or  feelings.     With  respect  to  these,  respect  the 

purposes 

it  supposes  that  all  men  must  necessarily  be  at  one.  uniform  and 
It  is  also  guarded  against  the  perverted  construe-  e^^a^ting- 
tion,  that  the  end  sanctions  or  justifies  the  means  (§  77),  when 
applied  to  the  primal  and  sacred  duties  of  life :  for  the  reason, 
that  it  denies  that  to  dishonor  such  duties  can  ever  be  the  means 
of  good ;  and  enforces  its  position  by  its  quick  and  honest 
discernment  of  the  relations  of  human  life,  and  its  fixed  and 
well-grounded  faith  in  the  moral  order  of  the  universe.  With 
regard  to  the  outward  actions,  however,  which  are  ordinarily 
supposed  to  manifest  these  feelings,  and  therefore  are  ordina- 
rily required  as  duties,  men  are  not  only  permitted  to  exercise 
their  private  judgment,  but  the  right  to  do  so  is  accorded  to 
them  as  a  necessary  incident  of  human  limitations,  and  there- 
fore as  sacred  and  inalienable.  It  follows,  that  the  right  of 
private  judgment  involves  the  duty  of  tolerating  such  differ- 
ences of  opinion  and  conduct,  not  merely  as  being  expedient, 
from  considerations  of  public  quiet,  but  as  enforced  by  the  obli- 
gations of  conscience.  Hence  it  is  no  paradox  to  assert,  that 
the  Christian  ethics  are  the  most  severe  and  uncompromising 
on  the  one  hand,  and  the  most  tolerant  and  charitable  on  the 
other ;  finding  the  reasons  for  the  intentions  and  duties  which 
they  exact  in  a  single  principle,  and  enforcing  both  by  the 
energy  of  their  peculiar  sanctions  of  duty. 

§  135.   (11)  For  these  reasons,  the  Christian  sys-   ethics  pro- 
tern  provides  for  indefinite  development  and  progress  ^''*®*  ^^' 

progress. 

in  the  public  and  private  codes  of  morality.     The 

more  that  mankind  can  learn  in  respect  to  the  laws  of   their 


282  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL   SCIENCE. 


[§  135. 


individual  and  social  natures,  and  the  more  completely  they 
master  the  special  circumstances  of  their  changing  conditions, 
the  more  completely  will  they  be  able  to  answer  the  question, 
by  what  rules  they  shall  shape  and  direct  their  conduct.  The 
common-sense  of  a  partially  cultivated  community  must  differ 
greatly  from  the  common-sense  of  one  more  completely  edu- 
cated, even  with  respect  to  the  morals  and  manners  of  common 
life.  In  respect  to  those  actions  which  are  not  immediately 
obvious  to  the  uneducated  and  inexperienced,  what  is  called 
common-sense  needs  to  be  instructed  by  that  larger  experi^ 
ence  and  more  sagacious  insight  which  men  call  science. 
This  is  especially  true  of  those  acts  which  affect  the  remoter 
interests  of  the  community,  or  which  are  prescribed  or  for- 
bidden by  legislation,  or  which  grow  out  of  the  complicated 
conditions  of  social  existence.  The  experience  of  the  evil  conse- 
quences of  practices  tolerated  and  esteemed  innocent  or  useful 
in  one  generation  is  often  required  to  arouse  the  conscience  of 
the  men  of  another  to  a  sense  of  their  immoral  tendency. 
Contrariwise,  the  experience  of  the  harmlessness  or  usefulness 
of  usages  hitherto  deemed  injurious  or  questionable  may  go 
far  to  change  the  opinions  of  men  for  the  better.  It  may  lead 
them  to  approve  what  they  formerly  condemned,  or  to  modify 
their  unfavorable  estimates.  The  Christian  ethics  provides  for 
these  changes  and  this  progress  by  the  sharp  and  permanent 
distinction  which  it  enforces  between  the  inner  man  and  the 
outward  conduct,  and  by  what  we  may  call  its  relative  indif- 
ference to  the  latter.  Hence  its  morality,  in  its  very  nature, 
must  be  progressive.  It  is  perfectly  free  to  change,  and  it  is 
bound  to  change,  because  of  its  power  over  the  individual  char- 
acter and  over  the  community,  —  to  stimulate  and  control  its 
development  in  the  life  of  the  individual  man,  and  in  the  life 
of  the  common  humanity.  It  provides  also  for  its  own  progress, 
eminently  by  the  circumstance,  that,  the  more  powerfully  the 
feelings  and  character  of  an  individual  or  the  community  are 
aroused  to  an  energetic  moral  life,  the  more  earnest  will  be  the 


§  135.]        THE  CHRISTIAN  THEORY  OF  MORALS.  283 

attention  and  the  sharper  the  discernment  concerning  the  import 
and  effect  of  that  conduct  which  it  allows  or  prescribes.  Hence, 
with  the  practical  improvement  of  the  ethical  life,  there  is  an 
almost  inevitable  certainty  of   progress  in   ethical 

•^  A      o  Involves  pro- 

knowledge,  and  of  improvement  in  the  standard  of  gressive  en- 
conduct.  This  is  true  of  the  individual  and  of  the  "^*»*«"™«»*- 
community,  especially  of  the  latter,  so  far  as  it  can  avail  itself 
of  the  wisdom  and  experience  of  enlightened  thinkers  or  close 
observers  or  skilful  teachers.  The  tendencies  of  public  and 
private  economies,  and  of  legislation  and  institutions  of  every 
sort,  will  be  clearly  watched  by  a  community  that  is  religiously 
conscientious  ;  and  the  effects  of  social  activities  and  provisions 
in  every  form  of  public  or  private  activity  will  be  sagaciously 
observed,  furnishing  the  material  for  the  inductions  of  science 
and  for  the  rules  of  life.  The  objection  is  sometimes  urged 
against  Christianity,  that  it  is  narrow,  and  therefore  incapable 
of  development  and  progress.  The  objection  reveals  a  very 
narrow  conception  of  Christianity  itself. 

This  is  so  far  from  being  true,  that,  of  all  the  systems  which 
have  been  proposed  to  man,  it  is  the  only  one  that  can 
fairly  claim  to  be  liberal  and  elastic,  for  the  reasons  system  that 
already  given.     For  the  same  reasons,  it  is  equally  provides  for 

progress. 

true  that  it  is  the  only  system  that  provides  for  con- 
stant progress.  Its  fundamental  principle  of  love  as  the  spring 
of  social  activity  can  never  be  displaced  or  outgrown  as  a 
motive  force  ;  for  it  covers  every  possible  form  of  human  affec- 
tions and  actions  in  all  conceivable  social  relations.  Whatever 
in  outward  act  or  operation  may  contribute  to  human  well- 
being,  whether  it  is  known  at  present,  or  shall  be  subsequently 
discovered,  is  embraced  within  its  comprehensive  range,  and 
provided  for  by  its  dynamic  force.  Whatever  can  be  discovered 
by  science  concerning  man's  relations,  whether  public  or  pri- 
vate, will  and  must  be  used  in  its  service.  Its  voice  to  the 
human  race  ever  has  been,  and  ever  will  be,  ''  Whatsoever 
things  are  true,  whatsoever  things  are  honest,  whatsoever  things 


284  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL   SCIENCE.  [§  135. 

are  just,  whatsoever  things  are  pure,  whatsoever  things  are 
lovely,  whatsoever  things  are  of  good  report,  if  there  be  any 
virtue,  and  if  there  be  any  praise,  tJiink  on  these  tilings'*  (Phil, 
iv.  8).  Its  constant  prayer  for  all  mankind  is  this:  "That 
your  love  (i.e.  inner  principle,  and  motive  force)  may  abound 
yet  more  and  more  in  knowledge  and  in  all  judgment;  that 
ye  may  approve  the  things  that  are  excellent "  (Phil.  i.  10). 

So  soon  as  love  as  a  moving  force  shall  abound  in  energy, 
and  love  shall  be  accompanied  with  every  description  of  knowl- 
edge as  to  the  forms  of  outward  action  which  are  appropriate 
for  its  manifestation,  so  soon  will  the  capacities  of  Christian 
ethics  to  perfect  human  society  be  tested  and  proved,  and 
sociology,  so  far  as  it  can  be  a  science,  will  in  fact  be  per- 
fected. 

It  should  not  be  overlooked,  in  this  connection,  that  Christianity  begins 
its  work  as  an  ethical  force,  in  the  form  of  a  human  society; 
thV  **"l  1      ^^^■'  *^^  kingdom  of  God.     As  such  it  assumes  to  be  pre- 
eminently a  social  force,  and  promises  and  proposes  to  grow 
and  develop  itself,  till  it  shall  fill  and  rule  the  whole  earth.    If,  as  many 
suppose,  the  nature  of  this  society  has  been  more  or  less  imperfectly  or 
even  erroneously  conceived,  this  proves  rather  than  disproves  the  truth 
of  the  promise  and  prophecy;  inasmuch  as  this  would  imply  that  it  is 
sagacious  and  bold  enough  to  promise  to  outgrow  its  own  errors  in  respect 
to  its  own  nature. 

This  society  is  a  human  society;  and  so  far  as  it  is  perfect,  it  must  be 
perfect  in  all  its  conceivable  human  relations,  if  in  none 
Applies  to  other.  So  far  as  it  gains  power,  it  must  eventually  control 
*  .,"™*"  the  public  and  private  conduct  of  men  in  every  particular. 
and  duties.  ^^^  progress  and  perfection  cannot,  from  the  nature  of  the 
case,  be  confined  to  growth  in  numbers  or  wealth  or  learn- 
ing or  power,  but  must  especially  concern  the  character  and  conduct  of 
men.  In  the  prophetic  ideal  of  its  Master,  it  was  to  be  progressive  in 
every  particular;  pre-eminently,  as  it  would  seem,  in  the  perfection  and 
enlightenment  of  his  disciples.  "  The  kingdom  of  heaven  is  like  unto 
leaven,  which  a  woman  took,  and  hid  in  three  measures  of  meal,  till  the 
whole  was  leavened"  (Matt.  xiii.  33).  "The  kingdom  of  heaven  is  like 
to  a  grain  of  mustard-seed,  .  .  .  which  indeed  is  the  least  of  all  seeds, 
but  when  it  is  grown,  it  is  the  greatest  among  herbs,  and  becometh  a  tree,' 
so  that  the  birds  of  the  air  come  and  lodge  in  the  branches  thereof" 
(Matt.  xiii.  31,  32). 


§  13G.]        THE  CHBISTIAN  THEORY  OF  MORALS.  285 

§  136.    (12;   In  entire  harmony  with  these  conceptions  is  the 
method  or  form  in  which  morality  is  taught  in  the   gi^gg  j„. 
New   Testament;  viz.,  by   principles,   and  not   by  stmction  by 

principles, 

rules.  To  furnish  a  single  man  with  the  rules  rather  tiian 
which  might  seem  desirable  or  even  necessary  for  a  **^  '"^®^* 
week,  would  be  an  idle  attempt ;  much  more,  to  do  this  for  a 
year  or  a  lifetime  ;  much  more,  to  provide  a  single  community 
with  such  a  code  for  a  shorter  or  a  longer  period.  It  would 
be  preposterous  to  think  of  furnishing  an  ethical  system  for  the 
entire  human  race  during  all  the  changing  and  unlimited  phases 
of  its  existence.  In  what  sense,  then,  and  how,  can  Christianity 
propose  itself  as  an  ethical  system  which  shall  be  adequate  to 
guide  the  human  race  in  all  its  variety  of  internal  and  external 
conditions  during  all  the  phases  of  its  possible  development 
and  progress?  Plainly,  only  as  it  enforces  certain  principles 
in  the  most  general  forms  of  their  application  ;  and  it  is  pre- 
cisely in  this  way  that  human  duties  are  taught  by  the  Great 
Teacher.  We  ought  not  to  be  surprised,  that  in  order  to 
enforce  these  principles  as  principles,  and  also  to  show  that 
in  their  use  they  admit  of  an  endless  variety  of  applications, 
so  many  should  be  announced  in  an  extreme  and  even  in  a 
paradoxical  form,  as  in  many  of  the  teachings  of 
the  Sermon  on  the  Mount.  The  form  is  paradox i-  paradoxical 
cal,  in  order  to  show  that  a  literal  interpretation  ^  ^^^' 
is  not  intended,  and  a  literal  obedience  is  impossible :  as, 
"Whosoever  shall  smite  thee  on  thy  right  cheek,  turn  to  him 
the  other  also.  And  if  any  man  will  sue  thee  at  the  law,  and 
take  away  thy  coat,  let  him  have  thy  cloak  also.  And  who- 
soever shall  compel  thee  to  go  a  mile,  go  with  him  twain. 
Give  to  him  that  asketh  thee,  and  from  him  that  would  borrow 
of  thee  turn  not  thou  away"  (Matt.  v.  39-42).  This  method  of 
teaching  ethics,  indeed,  is  not  peculiar  to  Christ,  being  Oriental 
in  its  type ;  but  the  daring  with  which  it  is  used  without  loss  of 
dignity  or  earnestness,  and  the  boldness  with  which  it  is  applied 
to  large  classes  of  duties  which  are  unpleasant,  and  made  to 


286  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL  SCIENCE.  [§  136. 

cover,  as  it  were,  the  entire  field  of  human  activities,  are  char- 
acteristic of  the  Christian  ethics.  As  no  other  ethics  concerns 
itself  with  principles  so  manifold  and  profound,  none  other  could 
venture  to  confine  itself  so  exclusively  to  principles  onlj',  and 
also  to  illustrate  them  so  boldly  by  paradoxes. 

It  is  true,  that  as  a  consequence  no  other  system  has  exposed 
to  itself  so  certainly  and  necessarily  to  misconstruction 
be  mis-  by  its  friends,  and  to  hostile  criticism  by  its  foes, 

cons  rue  .  rpj^^  ignorant  extremes  to  which  its  friends  have 
pushed  the  principles  which  they  have  imperfectly  understood, 
and  the  advantage  which  its  foes  have  taken  of  these  mis- 
constructions of  its  friends  as  well  as  of  their  own  superficial 
understanding  of  both  principles  and  inferences,  have  exposed 
the  Christian  ethics  to  manifold  evil  fortunes.  These  fortunes, 
however,  would  be  certain  to  befall  any  system  of  profound 
and  universal  ethics,  founded  upon  the  deepest  principles,  and 
requiring  unquestioning  applications  ;  especially  if  it  were  to  be 
taught  in  popular  language,  and  brought  by  picturesque  imagery 
within  the  reach  of  unreflecting  minds,  —  most  of  all,  if  it  were 
to  be  a  system  which  could  both  satisfy  the  speculative  philoso- 
pher, and  instruct  the  unlettered  savage.  Such  a  system  must 
of  necessity  be  exposed  to  these  inconveniences  ;  to  say  nothing 
of  the  mischief  which  the  pride  of  opinion,  the  bigotry  of  par- 
tisanship, the  intoxication  of  fanaticism,  and  the  pedantry  of 
learning,  would  be  certain  to  occasion.  A  system  profound  and 
strong  enough  for  all  generations  must  necessarily  be  often  and 
grossly  misunderstood ;  and  these  misunderstandings  must  oc- 
casion enormous  evils  in  opinion,  character,  and  conduct. 

We  can  only  refer  to  some  of  these  misunderstandings.     We 

name  first  of  all  the  fundamental  and  most  serious 

with  being      error  that  the  Christian   benevolence   is  weak   and 

weak  and        efl'eminate  ;  i.e.,  a  passive  affection  of  the  sensibili- 

effeminate. 

ties  and  emotions  only,  and  not  an  activity  of  the 
will  and  character.  This  error  is  a  mistaken  inference  from 
the  earnestness  with  which  disinterested  love  is  insisted  on  as  the 


§  136.]        THE  CHBISTIAN  THEORY  OF  MORALS.  287 

principle  of  all  duty,  and  the  emphasis  with  which  certain 
forms  of  its  manifestation  were  exemplified  by  the  Master,  and 
exacted  of  his  first  disciples.  The  cardinal  virtues  recognized 
by  mankind,  in  those  times,  had  been  either  the  Pharisaic  scru- 
pulosity of  a  formal  ritualism,  or  such  a  stoical  self-sufficiency 
and  self-conceit  as  excluded  sympathy,  pity,  and  humility. 
Against  these  current  and  prevailing  errors,  Christianity  uttered 
its  emphatic  protest,  in  the  example  of  its  Teacher  and  his 
followers ;  and,  so  to  speak,  it  staked  its  authority  and  its  ex- 
istence upon  the  issue  of  the  struggle  which  followed.  Chris- 
tianity itself  —  much  less  the  Christian  ethics  —  did  not  come 
as  a  philosophy  with  a  well-rounded  scholastic  system,  but  as  a 
practical  directory  of  the  life,  telling  the  men  of  its  generation 
what  they  ought  to  be  and  do.  In  doing  this,  it  singled  out 
the  defects  of  temper  and  conduct  which  prevailed,  to  rebuke 
and  forbid  them.  Hence  it  assailed  Pharisaism  and  supersti- 
tion in  worship,  and  stoicism  and  licentiousness  in  conduct,  and 
gave  special  prominence  to  the  opposite  virtues  in  the  lives 
and  precepts  of  its  Founder  and  his  first  disciples. 

Superficial  students  and  narrow  interpreters  have  drawn  the 
inference  that  the  Christian  system  did  not  provide 

•^  ^  With  over- 

for  any  other  virtues  than  those  which  it  definitely  looking 
named  and  brougrht  into  the  highest  relief.     They  i^po****"* 

^  ^  "^     virtues. 

have  inferred  that  it  did  not  inculcate  the  manlier 
sentiments,  and  did  not  provide  for  intellectual  discernment  and 
independence  in  respect  to  any  point,  least  of  all  in  the  judg- 
ments of  faith  and  duty.  They  have  argued  that  it  was  fitted 
to  train  only  unreasoning  bigots  or  sentimental  milksops  ;  that 
it  patronized  weaklings  and  cowards ;  that  it  failed  to  encour- 
age, much  less  to  inspire,  the  manliness  which  can  discern  one's 
rights,  or  the  courage  which  can  assert  and  defend  them.  Some 
otherwise  very  intelligent  men  have  gone  so  far  as  to  contend, 
that,  were  its  teachings  consistently  and  fearlessly  applied  in 
practice,  it  would  dispense  with  civil  government  and  separate 
properties,  and  break  up  or  leave  behind  many  venerable  land- 


288  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL  SCIENCE.  [§  136. 

marks  of  usages  and  institutions.  Those  who  hold  these  views  are 
both  friends  and  foes,  critics  and  disciples.  The  fact  that  many 
of  its  professed  friends  hold  to  these  views,  as  they  think  to  its 
honor,  emboldens  its  foes  to  urge  them  to  its  disadvantage.^ 
It  would  seem  to  be  a  decisive  reply  to  these  positions,  that 
we   nowhere  find  the  principle  laid  down  in  form, 

Dnties  with  .,.,.  ...  .    .  ,.„ 

respect  to  ^^  implied  in  principle,  or  inferred  in  fact,  that 
P'"^P®'^J[  civil  government  or  separate  properties  are  wrong  in 
government  principle,  or  that  either  is  finally  to  be  set  aside. 
inculcated  ^^  ^^^  ^^  ^^^  incidental  or  positive  teachings  of 
Christianity  furnish  any  evidence  upon  this  point, 
they  constantly  recognize  government  and  property  as  natural 
and  permanent  institutions.  Government  is  expressly  declared 
to  be  an  ordinance  of  God,  which  imposes  perpetual  obligations 
on  the  conscience.  The  position  of  Christianity  in  respect  to 
its  authority  is  distinctly  and  positively  summed  up  in  the 
words,  ''  wherefore  ye  must  needs  be  subject,  not  only  for 
wrath,  but  for  conscience'  sake"  (Rom.  xiii.  5).  The  same  is 
true  in  respect  to  the  institution  of  property ;  its  doctrine  being, 
"  Owe  no  man  any  thing."  The  righteousness  which  is  so 
often  and  so  emphatically  enjoined  in  the  New  Testament  is 
honesty  in  respect  to  all  matters  of  private  ownership  and 
claims.  As  it  is  with  government  and  property,  so  is  it  with  all 
the  recognized  relationships  of  life,  which  imply  rights  or  claims 
and  enforce  duties.  This  is  exemplified  in  the  fact,  that  with 
the  dues  of  property  all  other  dues  are  connected  in  the  com- 
prehensive direction,  "  Render  to  all  men  their  dues,"  —  tribute, 
custom,  fear,  and  honor  ;  thus  providing  for  all  the  relationships 
of  life,  the  major  and  the  minor,  the  fixed  and  the  movable. 

It  deserves  notice  here,  that,  in  respect  to  the 
Opposite  .  .  ^  .         ,.•>->„...      1        1 

charges  interpretation  of  its  ethics,  Christianity  has  been  con- 

°*'^®**  stantly  ground  between  two  millstones,  —  its  fanat- 

against  it.  "^   ^ 

ical  friends,  on  the  one  side,  who  have  denied  that  it 
actually  recognized  government  and  property  ;  and  its  fanatical 

i  e.g.,  Modern  Christianity  a  Civilized  Heathenism. 


§  136.]       THE  CHBISTIAN  THEOBY  OF  M0BAL8.  289 

foes,  on  the  other,  who  have  made  its  actual  recognition  of  one 
or  both  a  ground  of  objection  and  criticism.     It  has  been  noted 
as  a  defect  in  the  Christian  ethics,  that  Christianity  did  not 
enjoin  the  duty  that  men  should  sometimes  resist  magistrates 
and  overturn  civil  government.    It  has  been  charged,  on  the  one 
hand,  that  it  unqualifiedly  taught  the  doctrine  of  passive  obedi- 
ence, and  therefore  was  convicted  of  weakness  ;  or,  that,  recog- 
nizing the  duty  of  resistance  to  rulers  as  certain  to  arise,  it  did 
not  provide  against  it  by  giving  rules  for  the  actions  of  men  in 
so  critical  a  condition  of  human  affairs.    It  is  enough  to  say,  that 
most  political  philosophers  argue  that  it  is  impos-  ^ 
sible  to  formulate  and  express  in  language  any  rules  it  did  not 
concerning  the  duty  or  the  right  of  revolution  which  pontkai 
could  be  of  any  conceivable  use  beforehand ;  and  the  ^^ties  more 

minutely. 

fact  that  the  Christian  ethics  did  not  attempt  to  give 
such  rules,  and  did  not  even  anticipate  the  possible  need  of 
them,  is  an  evidence,  to  say  the  least,  of  no  common  sagacity. 
The  charge  that  Christianity  teaches  absolute  submission  and 
passive  obedience  may  be  dismissed  with  the  charge  that  it  does 
not  inculcate  the  heroic  and  manly  virtues  of  courage,  self-reli- 
ance, self-defence,  and  self-assertion.  These  virtues  needed  no 
stimulus  at  the  time  when  Christianity  began  to  contend  with 
the  special  vices  and  weaknesses  of  its  time.  It  is  its  eminent 
and  peculiar  glory,  that  it  fearlessly  attacked  the  moral  defects 
which  were  current,  and  these  alone,  and  yet  always  assailed 
them  by  striking  at  their  root  in  the  heart  and  character.  Its 
Master  lost  his  life  by  boldly  assailing  specific  evils,  but  in  thus 
losing  his  human  life  he  won  the  heart  of  mankind  to  that  love 
of  himself  in  which  is  involved  a  consecration  of  the  heart  to 
the  comprehensive  law  of  love,  which  he  enthroned  in  the 
schools  of  science. 


Mr.  J.  S.  Mill  says  in  his  essay  on  Liberty,  "While,  in  the  morality  of  the 
best  pagan  nations,  duty  to  the  state  holds  even  a  dispropor- 
tionate place,  in  purely  Christian  ethics  that  grand  depart-    i     j  c  «riii 
ment  of  duty  is  scarcely  noticed  or  acknowledged.    It  is  in 
the  Koran,  not  in  the  New  Testament,  that  we  read  the  maxim,  'A  man 


290  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL   SCIENCE.  [§  137. 

who  appoints  any  man  to  an  office  when  there  is  in  his  dominions  another 
man  better  qualified  for  it,  sins  against  God  and  against  the  state.'  This 
objection  may  serve  to  illustrate  the  superiority  of  the  Christian  ethics  to 
those  of  the  Koran,"  It  certainly  illustrates  a  singular  failure  to  under- 
stand the  ethics  of  the  New  Testament,  on  the  part  of  Mr.  Mill.  The  one 
teacher  undertook  to  improve  upon  the  other  by  superadding  a  few  direc- 
tions respecting  external  conduct  which  should  be  distinctive  of  the  new 
and  improved  Christianity  of  the  eighth  century;  as,  abstinence  from  wine, 
keeping  of  certain  fasts,  the  destruction  of  images,  and  the  readiness  to 
propagate  the  Koran  by  the  sword.  But  the  fruitfulness  and  germinant 
power  of  Christian  love,  after  the  example  of  a  personal  Master,  inspired  to 
universal  sympathy,  to  forgiveness  of  injuries,  to  humility  and  self-denial, 
even  to  death;  and  thus  called  into  life  virtues  which  previously  had 
scarcely  been  recognized.  The  Christian  system  provides,  in  its  compre- 
hensive principle,  for  every  special  duty  to  the  state  for  which  men  shall 
ever  find  a  reason  in  the  most  advanced  stages  of  political  and  social 
science;  yet  wisely  fails  to  set  down  in  black  and  white  special  rules  for 
appointments  to  office,  and  many  others  which  any  man  of  common  sense 
and  common  honesty  could  not  fail  to  discern  and  infer.  The  one  system 
of  ethics  is  a  tree  completely  developed,  with  scanty  branches  and  foliage, 
planted  in  a  sterile  soil,  but  incapable  of  further  development  and  growth: 
the  other  is  a  living  germ,  having  within  itself  the  capacity  for  development 
and  evolution  with  all  the  needs  and  capacities  of  its  future  environment 
under  the  most  diverse  circumstances  of  change  and  of  progress  in  the 
human  race. 


§  137.  It  is  sometimes  objected,  that  the  Christian  ethics  are 

impracticable,  because  a  system  so  unselfish  cannot 

ethics  called     ^  applied  in  a  society  which  is  avowedly  and  actu- 

imprac-  ^^y  controlled  by  principles  of  self-interest.     It  Is 

ticable.  ^  J    f  f 

forgotten,  that  separate  and  special  duties  to  one  s 
self,  to  one's  family,  and  country,  are  entirely  consistent,  and 
are  even  required  by  the  disinterested  love  of  man  as  man. 
The  objection  itself  finds  all  its  force  in  a  defective  conception 
of  the  duties  which  true  benevolence  requires.  We  acknowledge 
that  Christian  aims  and  ideals  are  higher  and  purer  than  those 
which  most  men  adopt ;  and  that  to  expect  them  to  do  this  at 
once,  and  thoroughly,  would  seem  romantic  if  not  quixotic. 
That  they  are  such  as  very  few  men  exemplify  with  tlie  energy 
and  consistency  which  they  warrant,  is  no  argument  against  the 


§  138,  139.]  THE  CHBISTIAN  TUEOBY  OF  MOBALS.         291 

practicability  of  the  system  itself,  but  rather  an  argument  for 
the  need  of  those  nobler  ideals  and  that  more  energetic  force 
which  Christianity  furnishes,  and  its  disciples  respond  to.  In 
no  other  sense  can  it  be  true  that  the  Christian  ethics  are  im- 
practicable. Were  they  adopted  at  once  in  the  full  energy  of 
their  fundamental  principles,  and  applied  in  every  possible  form 
to  the  acts  and  institutions  of  humanity,  the  result  in  a  reno- 
vated manhood  would  demonstrate  that  they  constitute  the  only 
practicable  ethical  system  which  the  world  has  ever  known, 
or  could  dream  of. 

§  138.  If  we  compare  this  system  in  its  theoretic  and  practi- 
cal perfection  with  any  and  every  other  which  has 
been  painfully  wrought  out  by  the  ablest  and  most  contrasted 
earnest   philosophers,  —  whether  with  those  which  ^**'*  ^^^^^ 

other  ethics. 

were  matured  in  desperate  earnestness  without  the 
light  and  inspiration  of  Christianity,  or  with  those  which  have 
been  composed  in  Christendom  in  ill-disguised  but  ignorant  con- 
tempt of  its  light  and  wisdom, — we  cannot  but  acknowledge  its 
superior  insight  into  the  nature  of  man,  and  the  unmeasured  su- 
periority of  its  speculative  profoundness,  and  its  practical  adap- 
tations to  the  various  and  changing  wants  and  circumstances  of 
humanity.  We  are  also  struck  with  the  fact  that  the  best  pagan 
ethics  are  more  allied  to  the  Christian  than  some  (not  to  say 
most)  of  the  so-called  Christian  systems  which  feebly  and  im- 
perfectly recognize  the  profoundness  of  the  ethics  of  the  New 
Testament.  The  ethics  of  Plato  and  Aristotle  are  in  some  im- 
portant particulars  broader  in  their  principles,  more  elevated  in 
their  spirit,  and  truer  to  the  nature  of  man,  than  several  well- 
known  modern  systems,  which,  with  the  New  Testament  open 
before  their  authors,  reduce  all  the  phenomena  of  conscience 
and  duty,  all  the  obligations  to  law  and  order,  all  the  restraints 
upon  murder,  robbery,  and  lust,  to  the  relations  of  mechanism, 
and  the  affinities  of  matter,  or  the  actions  and  re-actions  of 
monads  and  environment. 

§  139.  If  our  estimate  of   the   Christian   ethics  is   just,  no 


292  ELEMENTS  OF  MOBAL  SCIENCE.      [§  140,  141. 

thoughtful  man  can  fail  to  ask  himself  the  question,  Whence 

Whence  did     Came  this  system,  in  form  so  simple,  in  pathos  so 

fit  originate?    moving,  in  its  principles  so  profound,  m  its  practical 

I /rules  so  adjustable,  in  its  capacities  for  progress  and  adaptation 

///  so   inexhaustible?    Had  it   appeared   by  itself,   and  did  the 

J//  author  make  no  claims  for  himself,  it  would  itself  suggest  and 

j/f   enforce  claims  the  most  exalted  for  his  work  and  for  himself. 

ij     Inasmuch,  however,  as  its  Expounder  asserts  for  himself  the 

i     supernatural  authority  which  its  internal  characteristics  would 

I      of  themselves  suggest,  it  is  not  easy  to  evade  or  resist  the  argu- 

?      ment,  or  to  hold  ourselves  back  from  the  conclusion  which  its 

I     striking  and  manifold  excellences  force  upon  us,  that  both  in 

I     an  extraordmary  if  not  a  supernatural  sense  are  from  God. 

§  140.  The  following  additional  questions  naturally  suggest 
themselves  with  respect  to  the  Christian  ethics,  as 

Further  ' 

questions  related  to  the  ethics  taught  and  exemplified  in  the 
concerning      Qj^j  Testament:    1.  How  far  are  these  two  systems 

this  system.  •^ 

the   same,   and   in  what   respects   do   they  differ? 

2.  In  what  sense  is  there  progress  from  the  one  to  the  other? 

3.  Are  the  precepts  of  one  or  both  in  any  case  immoral  in  their 
ethical  teachings,  spirit,  or  example?  4.  By  what  general 
rules  or  formulae  may  we  be  guided  in  using  the  general  prin- 
ciples or  special  rules  of  ethics  in  their  application  to  other  and 
later  times  ? 

§  141.  (1)  Is  the  ethical  system  of  the  Old  Testament  the 
(1)  Are  the  ^amc  with  that  of  the  New  ?  To  this  question  we 
ethics  of  the    answer :  It  cannot  be  questioned,  that,  in  their  fun- 

Old  and  New 

Testaments  damental  principles,  the  two  systems  are  the  same, 
the  same  I       rpj^^  g^^^  ^^^  ^^^^^  Commandment  of  the  Hebrew 

law,  given  also  at  the  very  earliest  period,  is  declared  by  the 
great  Teacher  of  Christendom  to  be  this  :  ''  Thou  shalt  love  the 
Lord  thy  God  with  all  thy  heart,  and  with  all  thy  soul,  and  with 
all  thy  mind  ; ' '  and  the  second  is  declared  to  be  like  unto  it  in 
authority  and  sacredness,  viz.,  "Thou  shalt  love  thy  neighbor 


§  142.]        THE  CHBI8TIAN  TREOBY  OF  M0BAL8.  293 

as  thyself."  The  comprehensive  character  of  these  two  precepts 
is  next  affirmed  in  the  words,  "On  these  two  commandments 
hang  all  the  law  and  the  prophets."  The  same  comprehensive 
character  is  re-affirmed  more  explicitly,  and  in  a  reflective  form, 
in  the  words  of  Paul:  "And  if  there  be  any  other  command- 
ment, it  is  briefly  comprehended  in  this  saying ;  namely.  Thou 
shalt  love  thy  neighbor  as  thyself."  With  this  evidence,  there 
can  be  no  question,  that  so  far  as  the  principle  how  far 
which  underlies  the  two  systems  is  concerned,  ^i^erent? 
either  in  words  or  in  fact,  in  the  letter  or  the  spirit,  it  is 
precisely  the  same.  Nothing  in  the  entire  history  of  man's 
ethical  development  is  more  surprising  than  the  fact,  that  these 
great  commandments  should  have  been  so  distinctly  formulated 
and  so  comprehensively  affirmed  so  early  in  the  ethical  educa- 
tion of  the  race,  and  announced  as  the  foundation-pillars  of  all 
human  obligation.  The  expansion  of  them  into  the  so-called 
Ten  Commandments  is  simply  a  legitimate  attempt  to  apply 
them  to  the  more  prominent  of  Hebrew  institutions,  and  some 
of  the  conspicuous  relations  of  human  life.  The  ethical  import 
and  the  varied  application  of  the  Hebrew  system  were  also  most 
comprehensively  expressed  in  the  words,  "  He  hath  shewed 
thee,  O  man,  what  is  good ;  and  what  doth  the  Lord  require  of 
thee,  but  to  do  justly,  and  to  love  mercy,  and  to  walk  humbly 
with  thy  God?" 

§  142.   (2)  In  what  sense,  and  to  what  extent,  is  there  prog- 
ress from  one  of  these  systems  to  the  other?     In   ^g)  in  what 
the  same  sense  in  which  there  is  progress  in  any  sense  is  there 

Drosrrcss 

ethical  system.  The  fact  that  this  progress  was  from  one  to 
directed  by  constant  divine  agency,  and  often  or  t^eothe""* 
always  quickened  by  supernatural  communications  and  super- 
natural power,  in  no  sense  takes  it  out  of  relation  to  the  laws 
of  natural  growth  and  development.  So  far  as  men  recognize 
the  import  of  any  fundamental  principles  more  and  more  clearly 
in  their  application  to  special  cases  of  conduct,  or  even  to 
the  control  and  modification  of  their  feelings ;  so  far,  and  so 


294  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL   SCIENCE.  [§  142. 

far  only,  can  they  discover  new  and  special  rules  of  themselves, 
or  accept  them  when  imparted  by  teachers.  The  conditions  of 
such  progress  have  been  already  explained  at  length.  Teachera 
and  communities  must  be  awakened  to  a  warm  and  sympathiz- 
ing interest  in  ethical  truths  ;  and  they  must  have  experience  to 
illustrate  the  operation  and  results  of  external  conduct,  and  suf- 
ficient intellectual  culture  to  render  them  capable  of  being  in- 
structed by  what  they  observe.  The  doctrine  that  the  Hebrew 
people  were  also  dependent  on  special  divine  guidance  and  in- 
struction, for  their  institutions  and  in  their  history,  explains 
the  original  superiority  of  their  moral  code,  and  the  equally 
surprising  fact,  that,  in  their  conceptions  of  the  import  of  this 
code,  they  were  continually  making  progress.  Such  progress, 
it  should  be  carefully  observed,  in  its  very  nature  confirms  the 
original  principles,  by  the  abandonment  of  mistaken  and  the 
adoption  of  corrected  applications  of  their  import  to  the  feel- 
ings and  conduct.  It  implies,  that  the  earlier  applications  to 
conduct  and  feeling  were  mistaken  and  imperfect,  and  that  the 
later  were  more  in  accordance  with  the  truth.  In  other  words, 
it  implies  development  and  growth.     It  involves  the 

^  ^  ®  ,  .  Every  llvlngr 

necessary   consequence,  that  the   earlier  teachmgs  gystemmast 

did  not  condemn  the  conduct  which  the  later  teach-  *'®  progres- 

siTe. 
ings   forbade,  and  that  the   conscience  of   earlier 

times  was  never  offended,  either  by  the  practices  and  teachings 

or  the  sentiments  and  actions  which  all  the  men  of  later  times 

rejected  and  condemned.     Such  progress  we  find  as  we  proceed 

along  the  Hebrew  and  emerge  into  the  Christian  Scriptures. 

Such  progress  is  not  inconsistent  with  the  moral  superiority  of 

either,  or  with  the  position  that  the  morality  of  the  two  is  the 

same.     Indeed,  any  sound  or  thoughtful  system  of  ethics  must 

be  capable  of  progress.     If  it  fails  to  undergo  new  phases  of 

adaptation,  and  to   be   expressed  in  more  befitting  language 

and  actions,  it  will,  in  all  probability,  either  be  petrified  into 

a  statue,  or  decay  as  a  corpse.     If  it  is  not,  it  cannot  be  taught 

in  comprehensive  and  fundamental  principles,  but  can  be  im- 


§  143.]       THE  CHRISTIAN  THEORY  OF  MORALS.  295 

parted  only  in  positive  and  isolated  precepts.  A  principle  in 
morality,  as  in  every  science  or  art,  is  always  germinal,  grow- 
ing, and  productive,  and  the  only  form  of  truth  that  can  be. 
To  this  general  truth  we  should  expect  that  a  morality  taught  by 
supernatural  authority,  and  enforced  by  an  extraordinary  provi- 
dence, would  form  no  exception.  We  should  simply  expect  it 
to  be  conspicuous  for  the  unity  of  its  fundamental  truths,  the 
variety  and  richness  of  their  applications,  and  the  progressive- 
ness  and  affluence  of  its  development.     It  ought 

,      ,  .   ,  The  Hebrew 

also  to  be  observed,  that  special  arrangements  were  system 
made  in  the  Hebrew  system  for  progress  in  its  eth-  ^P«<'**"y 

^•^  r     o  progressive. 

ical  sentiment  and  opinion,  by  a  permanent  provision 
for  the  mission  of  special  teachers  or  prophets,  one  of  whose 
functions  was  to  interpret  and  apply  the  general  principles  of 
the  fundamental  political  and  moral  code  to  the  changing  cir- 
cumstances and  the  advancing  culture  and  conscience  of  suc- 
cessive generations.  The  existence  of  special  schools  for  the 
training  and  perpetuation  of  such  teachers  strongly  confirms 
the  position,  not  only  that  the  morality  of  the  Hebrews  was 
capable  of  progress,  but  that  special  arrangements  were  made 
from  the  beginning  for  its  progressive  development.  The  distin- 
guished political  services  which  these  prophets  rendered  are  rec- 
ognized by  John  Stuart  Mill,  in  his  essay  on  "Representative 
Government,"  although  he  fails  to  notice  their  usefulness  in 
developing  and  applying  the  germinal  principles  of  their  moral 
system. 

§  143.    (3)  We  inquire,  next,  whether  the   special  ethical 
directions  which  we  find  in  the  Scriptures,  especially   ,gj  ^^e  any  of 
in  the  Old  Testament,  are  immoral  in  their  instruc-  *fce  precepts 
tions  or  spirit  or  examples.     We  select  as  exam-  Testament 
pies  those  which  would  occur  to  any  mind  :  viz.,  the  i™n»o'*ai' 
tolerance  of  personal  slavery,  of   polygamy,  of   personal  and 
blood  revenge,  of  the  treatment  of  captives  in  war,  which  we 
find  in  the  fundamental  and  special  laws  given  to  the  Hebrews ; 
also  the  alleged  spirit  of  cruelty  and  revenge  in  some  of  the 


296  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL  SCIENCE.  [§  143. 

Hebrew  psalms,  and  the  revengeful  and  cruel  conduct  of  con- 
spicuous Hebrew  leaders  and  worthies. 

To  this  comprehensive  question,  we  give  this  comprehensive 
reply :   The  Hebrew  laws  were  given  to  an  actual 
of  these  people,   whom   they  took    as   they   found.     They 

precepts.  found  this  people,  so  to  speak,  a  barbarous  tribe, 
the  majority  of  whom  were  in  a  very  imperfect  condition  of 
actual  knowledge  and  capacity,  in  respect  to  the  principles 
of  morality;  with  a  feeble  capacity  of  feeling  in  respect  to 
moral  obligation ;  and  a  very  limited  knowledge  of  the  special 
external  duties  in  which  these  principles  should  be  exemplified, 
and  to  which  these  impulses  would  urge  them.  In  respect  to 
the  so-called  fundamental  and  axiomatic  rights,  —  as  of  the 
child  to  his  life  or  property,  against  his  father ;  or  the  wife  to 
her  conjugal  position,  as  against  her  husband ;  or  the  citizen 
against  the  state,  —  they  were  in  the  same  condition  o^  ethical 
infancy  from  which  the  Roman  jurisprudence  was  slow  and  late 
in  emancipating  its  subjects,  many  centuries  later.  The  Hebrew 
code  found  the  Hebrew  people  in  the  actual  possession  of  bar- 
barous customs  and  institutions,  inured  to  constant  warfare, 
with  its  attendant  passions  and  violence,  and  accustomed  to 
domestic  slavery  in  some  one  or  more  of  its  manifold  forms. 
To  this  state  of  morals  and  manners,  to  this  condition  of  ethical 
infancy  in  respect  to  what  seem  to  us  some  of  the  most  obvious 
ethical  truths  and  precepts,  these  institutions  were  skilfully 
adapted ;  tolerating  practices  which  could  not  be  eradicated 
without  actual  re-creation,  softening  barbarities  which  would 
not  be  suddenly  abandoned,  and  lifting  the  whole  community 
by  the  slow  but  certain  processes  of  natural  development  as 
animated  and  quickened,  as  instructed  and  directed,  by  super- 
natural teachings  and  influence.  "We  cannot  here  give  the 
reasons  for  holding  this  general  theory  of  the  Hebrew  economy. 
That  this  may  be  claimed  for  it,  is  clear  from  the  very  highest 
authority,  who  explains  the  legal  tolerance,  by  the  Mosaic  law, 
of  unlimited  and  arbitrary  divorce  on  the  part  of  the  husband, 


§  144.]        THE  CHBISTIAN  THEOBY  OF  MOEALS.  297 

as  follows:  "Moses,  because  of  the  hardness  of  your  hearts, 
sujffered  you  to  put  away  your  wives ;  but  from  the  beginning 
it  was  not  so"  (Matt.  xix.  8).  How  it  was  in  the  beginning, 
with  the  divine  idea  and  law  of  marriage,  had  been  previously 
explained  (Matt.  xix.  5  sqq.).  The  same  principle  may  be 
applied  to  explain  the  legal  tolerance  of  slavery,  with  specific 
directions  for  the  regulation  and  the  mitigation  of  its  evils,  as 
also  to  the  softening  of  many  other  barbarisms  in  public  institu- 
tions and  private  manners.  In  respect  to  all  these  formal  and 
informal  codes,  it  may  be  safely  and  truly  said,  that  they  did  not 
offend  the  moral  sense  of  the  people  to  whom  they  were  given 
and  among  whom  they  were  allowed ;  and  that  in  them,  as  it 
were  in  their  very  root,  a  living  force  was  provided  which  was 
destined  to  slough  off  their  excrescences,  and  in  due  time  to 
produce  fairer  flowers  and  better  fruits.  In  all  these  special 
provisions,  we  discern  a  higher  standard  of  practical  and  special 
morality  than  that  of  any  of  the  peoples  with  whom  they  had 
intercourse,  and  a  constant  tendency,  in  the  genius  of  the 
system,  towards  a  permanent  improvement.^ 

§  144.  In  respect  to  acts  of  seeming  cruelty  and  revenge  which 
were  perpetrated  by  men  in  other  respects  of  de-  Ethical  in- 
vout  feelings  and  saintly  aspirations,  it  is  enough  to  terpretation 
say,  that  possibly  they  were  acts  of  necessity  in  the  cruelty  and 
administration  of  rude  justice  by  an  arbitrary  ruler,   ^*'' 
or  military  officer,  under  the  received  customs  and  exigencies  of 
war.      The  characters  of  men  who  were  distinguished  in  the 
Hebrew  history  for  patriotism  and  devotion  are  never  recognized 
as  examples  for  imitation  in  any  particular  except  their  good- 
ness.    The  acts  and  feelings  which  were  inconsistent  with  their 
nobler  traits  are  to  be  taken  for  what  they  are  worth  when 
tried  by  the  perfect  standard  ;  it  being  remembered  always,  that 

1  Cf.  J.  B.  MozLEY,  Ruling  Ideas  in  Early  Ages;  New  York,  1877,  for 
an  admirable  discussion  of  the  entire  subject  of  the  morality  of  the  Old- 
Testament  teachings  and  history;  cf.  also  Bishof  Butleb,  Analogy,  part  ii. 
chap.  iii. 


298  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL   SCIENCE.  [§  144. 

their  words  and  acts,  tested  by  the  measure  of  their  times,  were 
by  no  means  so  criminal  as  if  measured  by  the  judgments  of 
times  more  enlightened. 

In  respect  to  the  sentiments  of  seeming  cruelty  and  revenge 
which  are  found  in  close  connection  with  devout  and  unselfish 
motives,  it  might  be  instructive  to  many  men,  to  read,  in  con- 
nection with  the  so-called  imprecatory  Psalms,  the  excited 
denunciations  of  slaveholding  and  of  slaveholders  by  many  con- 
spicuous reform'ers,  preachers,  and  politicians,  in  the  beginning 
and  progress  of  the  anti-slavery  agitation  in  this  country,  as 
also  the  equally  extravagant  sermons  and  prayers  of  many  of 
their  opponents  ;  or  to  call  to  mind  the  free  use  of  the  spirit,  if 
not  of  the  language,  of  the  imprecatory  Psalms  in  Great  Britain, 
during  the  great  Sepoy-rebellion  in  India;  or  to  recall  the 
severity  of  the  civil  and  military  administration,  then  and  since, 
against"  the  enemies  of  the  English  Government,  and  the  sum- 
mary proceedings  of  not  a  few  Christian  officers  in  disposing 
of  the  lives  of  captives  and  criminals,  as  reflected  in  the  light  of 
their  unquestionably  devout  and  humane  spirit.  In  every  one 
of  these  examples,  we  may  admit  that  the  motives  were  pure, 
the  aspirations  unselfish,  and  the  zeal  kindled  from  the  altar  of 
God,  and  yet  hold  that  all  were  corrupted  by  earthly  admix- 
tures in  temper  and  act.  The  revengeful  spirit  of  single  pas- 
sages in  the  Psalms  of  David  no  more  sanctions  similar  feelings 
on  our  part  than  what  we  call  his  acts  of  adultery  and  murder. 
That  so  good  a  man  should  commit  such  crimes,  is  explained 
by  the  feeble  moral  sense  of  his  times  in  respect  to  the  heinous- 
ness  of  similar  offences  in  a  king.  Alas  that  this  feebleness 
should  so  often  have  been  exhibited,  even  in  the  present  Chris- 
tian century ! 

Examples  '' 

and  practices  It  is  not  always  casy  to  satisfy  one's  moral  feel- 
terpreted  by"  ^^S^  ^^  ^"^  theoretical  Considerations,  or  the  use  of 
the  historic  the  most  Striking  examples,  however  pertinent  or  fit- 
ting these  may  be.  It  requires  some  historic  sense 
and  capacity  to  interpret  justly  and  intelligently  the  men  of  other 


§§145,146.]   THE  CHRISTIAN  THEORY  OF  MORALS.       299 

times  and  different  culture  from  our  own,  and  much  more  to 
judge  of  them  charitably.  While,  in  one  point  of  view, 
nothing  is  so  stern  and  sacred  as  the  law  of  duty,  and  the 
principles  which  it  imposes,  there  is,  on  the  other,  nothing 
so  varied,  and  at  times  seemingly  so  inconsistent,  as  the  actions 
and  feelings  which  it  sanctions,  especially  as  exhibited  by  men 
and  races  of  diverse  cultures  and  religions.  Notwithstanding 
these  differences,  and  the  embarrassments  they  occasion,  there 
is  but  one  law  of  duty,  as  there  is  but  one  God ;  and  the  name 
of  each  is  love. 

§  145.  The    last   question    is   no   less    important   than   the 
preceding :  What  formula  may  we  use  in  interpret- 
ing, and  applying  to   our  own  times,  the   general  formula  can 
principles  and  special  rules  of  the  Scriptures  ?    The  ^n^'^ap*!' 
general  principles  of  morality  are  valid  for  all  time,   scriptural 
Hence    every   comprehensive    requirement   of    the 
moral  law  which  we  find  in  the  Scriptures  shines  by  its  own 
light  as  truly  as  it  is  enforced  by  divine  authority.     So  soon  as 
this  law  is  stated  and  comprehended,  it  is  assented  to  by  the 
intellect,  and  responded  to  by  the  feelings,  of  all  men,  in  every 
generation,  in  every  condition  of  culture,  and  every  grade  of 
civilization. 

§  146.  But  the  Scriptures  also  abound  with  special  messages 
and  rules  of  duty  given  at  different  periods  of  the 
world's  history,  and  under  every  variety  of  circum-  respecting 
stances.     How,  then,  shall  we  know  that  these  mes-  !^^  app"«a- 

'  '  tion  even 

sages  have  any  meaning  or  authority  for  ourselves  ?  of  positive 

f^P3iClii  II  firs 

By  what  criteria  do  we  judge  that  a  message  of  a 
Hebrew  prophet  to  an  Oriental  nation,  or  another  generation  of 
men,  is  also  a  message  of  God  to  us  concerning  our  duty ;  or 
that  the  particular  precepts  of  Christ  to  his  original  disciples, 
or  of  an  apostle  to  Christian  believers  in  the  infancy  of  their 
life,  have  any  significancy  for  our  conduct  and  circumstances  ? 
To  these  questions  the  answer  is  simple  and  brief. 

The  special  directions  given  under  particular  circumstances, 


800  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL  SCIENCE.  [§  146. 

wherever  there  is  evidence  that  they  were  designed .  to  be  per- 
manent and  universal  rules,  are  equally  binding  upon  all  the 
men  to  whose  circumstances  they  apply.  But  a  direction  may 
be  given  for  a  special  occasion  and  special  circumstances  which 
correspond  exactly  to  persons  and  circumstances  at  the  present 
time ;  and  yet,  unless  it  is  clear  that  this  direction  was  given 
for  all  times  and  occasions,  it  need  not  follow  that  it  is  a 
rule  of  duty  for  ourselves.  For  example,  the  directions  of  the 
apostles  in  respect  to  the  speaking  of  women  in  churches  were 
explicit  and  decisive ;  but,  before  they  are  applied  to  the  pres- 
ent time,  we  must  be  assured  that  they  were  intended  to  be 
permanent,  as  really  as  that  the  occasions  are  similar.  The 
criterion  is  double  :  the  rule  must  befit  present  circumstances  aaf 
truly  as  those  under  which  it  was  originally  given,  and  it  must 
be  shown  to  be  a  permanent  rule.  It  is  only  when  both  these 
conditions  concur,  that  any  rule,  however  specific,  is  binding  ol 
the  conscience  as  of  scriptural  authority. 


PART  11. 


THE  PRACTICE  OF  DUTY,  OR  ETHICS. 


CHAPTER    I. 

INTRODUCTORY:    CLASSIFICATION  OF  DUTIES. 

§  147.  By  a  psychological  examination  of  man's  moral  nature, 
we  have  souojht  to  ascertain  those  endowments  and 

Previous  In- 

relations  which  are  essential  to  his  moral  activity,  quiries,  and 
Our  subsequent  inquiries  in  moral  science  have  given  *^®*'  results, 
us  the  theory  of  duty  as  the  result  of  the  analysis  and  deter- 
mination of  those  fundamental  conceptions  and  principles  which 
our  psychological  inquiries  evolved.  We  proceed  now  to  ethics, 
or  the  determination  and  classification  of  the  special  rules  of 
duty,  so  far  as  they  follow  from  our  previous  inquiries. 

A  correct  theory  of  duty  must  of  itself  involve  a  few  defi- 
nite rules  of  willing  and  action.  We  have  seen  (§  54)  that  we 
cannot  examine  the  endowments  which  constitute  man's  moral 
nature,  without  discovering  what  is  the  end  or  purpose  for  which 
these  endowments  exist,  and,  consequently,  in  what  way  these 
activities  ought  to  be  employed,  as  expressed  in  some  compre- 
hensive yet  definite  rules  of  voluntary  action.  Indeed,  any  and 
every  theory  concerning  the  moral  nature  or  moral  powers  of  man 
must  necessarily  provide  for  certain  general  principles  or  rules, 
as  to  how  this  moral  nature  must  be  used.  These  rules,  more- 
over, must  extend  not  only  to  the  volitions  and  dispositions,  the 
purposes  and  intentions,  but  also  to  definite  actions  of  body 
and  mind. 

The  rules  which  we  have  thus  far  obtained  must,  of  necessity, 
be  very  general,  and  can  serve  little  direct  and  practical  use  in 
guiding  or  helping  us  to  the  regulation  of  our  actions,  and  the 


804  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL  SCIENCE.  [§  148. 

conduct  of  our  life.  But  we  cannot  stop  with  these ;  we  can- 
not be  content  with  the  recognition  of  the  general  obligation 
voluntarily  to  choose  what  involves  our  highest  good,  or  to 
recognize  the  truth  that  this  good  must  necessarily  involve  love 
to  others  and  allegiance  to  God.  The  conclusion,  that  in  order 
Pre  ar  f  r  *^  attain  man's  highest  good  in  thought,  feeling, 
other  iiiTes-  and  act,  wc  must  love  our  fellow-men  as  we  love 
ga  ons.  ourselves,  simply  raises,  without  answering,  such 
subordinate  questions  as  these  :  "  What  thought,  feeling,  word, 
or  act  will  accomplish  this  end,  to-day,  to-morrow,  here  and 
there?  "  or,  "  Who  is  my  neighbor?  "  at  the  present  moment,  as 
I  encounter  this  man  and  that  in  the  experiences  and  struggles 
of  living.  The  occasion  and  the  necessity  still  remain  for  us  to 
define  and  justify  particular  and  precise  rules  of  duty  for  the 
manifold  conditions  and  relations  of  our  human  existence. 
§  148.  The  statement  and  enforcement  of  these  rules  of 
special  activity  constitute  what  we  have  chosen  to 
respect  the  Call  ethics  (§4).  Thcsc  rules,  in  the  last  analysis, 
voluntary        j^  ^11  cascs  require  right  activities  or  states  of  the 

purposes. 

will,  as  the  final  and  supreme  directive  and  motor 
of  all  the  other  activities  of  the  man.  But  they  chiefly  concern 
its  subordinate  and  particular  activities.  What  its  supreme  and 
comprehensive  volitions  ought  to  be,  is  supposed  to  be  easily 
understood,  and  to  require  little  definition  or  enforcement. 

These  specified  volitions  or  intentions  are  prominently  the 
subject-matter  of  ethical  direction  as  they  are  manifested  in  feel- 
ing and  action.  The  intention,  or  purpose,  has  been  explained 
to  be  the  result  of  volition  ;  i.e.,  it  is  a  desire  or  impulse  made 
supreme  by  the  will  (§§  32,  33).  But  every  intention  thus 
made  supreme  will  act  itself  out  in  word  or  deed,  unless  its 
manifestations  are  directed  or  hindered  by  some  extraneous 
force.  For  this  reason,  the  duty  to  intend  or  purpose  carries 
with  it  the  additional  obligation  to  act  in  a  particular  way. 
Hence,  in  the  court  of  duty,  to  intend  supremely,  —  i.e.,  volun- 
tarily to  desire,  —  is  in  effect  and  responsibility  to  act,  even  if 


§  148.]  CLASSIFICATION  OF  DUTIES.  305 

the  external  action  is  prevented  by  some  superior  physical 
constraint  or  controlling  physical  disability.  Consequently  the 
rules  of  ethics  respect  and  include  the  purposes,  the  feelings, 
and  the  actions,  one  and  all,  so  far  as  these  are  under  the  con- 
trol of  the  will.  It  is,  then,  to  the  right  use  of  the  will,  that 
every  ethical  precept  is  immediately  directed,  as  it  controls  the 
appropriate  activities  of  thought,  feeling,  and  manifestation  in 
word,  gesture,  or  deed.  Now  a  purpose  is  commanded,  now  a 
feeling,  now  an  act,  now  all  three,  according  to  circumstances ; 
it  being  understood  that  the  intention  of  duty  is  always  present 
as  the  animating  soul. 

The  truth  has  already  been  explained,  that,  while  the  compre- 
hensive law  of  duty  is  the  same,  many  of  its  special  |g     .^j  ^^jg^ 
rules  must  change  with  changing  occasions  and  va-  of  duty 
rying  circumstances.     The  term  "  circumstances,"   circum- 
as  here  used,  admits  of  a  wide  variety  of  meanings,   stances. 
Circumstances  may  be  apparently  as  fixed  and  as  universal  as 
the   relationships   of  the  family,  or  the   so-called  inalienable 
rights  of  man,  in  which  cases  the  most  rigorous  rules  of  duty 
may  be  ascertained  and  imposed ;  or  they  may  be  as  unstable 
as  the  casual  opportunity  to  help  a  stranger  at  a  street-crossing, 
or  to  cheer  a  forlorn  fellow-traveller  with  a  kind  word  or  look, 
for  which  no  rules  whatever  can  be  prescribed.     For  such  tran- 
sient cases,  only  the  most  indefinite  advice  or  counsel  can  be 
furnished. 

Some  of  these  rules  find  their  starting-point  or  nucleus  in  cer- 
tain original  impulses  or  instinctive  tendencies  or  those  psycho- 
physiological arrangements  which  determine  the  human  race  to 
certain  attitudes  or  gestures  as  expressive  of  certain  feelings 
and  thoughts.  The  recognition  of  such  impulses  as  universal 
leads,  necessarily,  to  the  imposition  of  them  in  the  form  of  law 
or  duty,  under  the  operation  of  human  society,  and  determines 
the  outlines  of  a  universal  code  of  etiquette  or  "good  form,"  so 
far  as  any  such  code  exists.  Many  rules  of  external  conduct 
also  have  an  accidental  and  arbitrary  origin. 


306  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL  SCIENCE.  [§  148. 

Many  rules  of  speech  and  behavior  are  also  largely  obtained 
by  experience  and  induction,  and  are,  consequently,  ranked  as 
probable  knowledge,  as  contrasted  with  that  which  is  axiomatic. 
It  will  not  be  questioned,  that  so  far  as  such  rules  depend  on 
the  effects  or  tendencies  of  action,  whether  in  the  physical  or 
psychical  world,  they  must  be  obtained  by  induction,  and 
founded  on  experience.  Even  if  instinct  or  intuition  or  rev- 
elation furnish  many  of  the  fundamental  and  comprehensive 
principles  as  well  as  motives  of  duty,  induction  must,  to  a 
large  extent,  apply  these  principles  to  special  cases,  and  also 
frame  special  rules  for  the  direction  of  the  conduct  under  the 
light  of  these  principles. 

It  is  notorious  that  every  theory  of  morals  finds  some  place 

for  induction  in  its  codes  of  ethics.    Theories  differ, 

required         Indeed,  in  that  the  advocates  of  one  assert  a  wider 

in  every  sphere  than  those  of  another  for  intuition,  and  a 

ethical  code. 

narrower  sphere  for  induction.     Those  writers  who 

assert  the  largest  place  for  intuition,  in  determining  special 
rules  concerning  our  duties  to  God,  to  our  parents,  our  bene- 
factors, or  our  friends,  will  still  concede,  that,  in  the  changing 
circumstances  of  life,  these  rules  must  change  with  experience, 
and  many  of  them  can  be  improved  with  the  progress  of  science 
(§92).  If  any  insist  that  the  special  rules  of  duty  are  incapa- 
ble of  change  for  the  better,  they  would  still  concede,  that,  for 
the  wise  application  of  these  rules,  man  must  be  instructed  by 
experience,  which  is  another  name  for  induction.  The  most 
confident  champions  of  intuitive  axioms  will  confess  that  resort 
must  constantly  be  had  to  probable  evidence  to  determine  the 
cases  to  which  these  axioms  apply.  There  are  few  who  would 
contend  that  the  moral  reason,  with  its  categorical  imperative, 
or  the  moral  sense,  with  its  emotional  impulses,  could  possibly 
be  adequate  to  all  the  questions  or  cases  of  conscience,  or  the 
many  vexing  puzzles  of  casuistry,  however  wide  may  be  their 
range,  or  positive  their  decisions. 

It  is  to  be  observed,  however,  that  what  we  call  induction 


§  149.]  CLASSIFICATION  OF  DUTIES.  307 

includes  that  subtile  sagacity  or  tact  by  which  the  adapta- 
tions of  nature  are  discerned,  and  the  indications  of  induction 
nature  are  interpreted ;  as  truly  as  those  generali-  includes  tact, 
zations  from  observation  and  experience,  which  can  be  justified 
by  decisive  instances,  or  which  have  been  embodied  in  the 
statutes  of  law-makers,  the  decisions  of  jurists,  the  reasonings  of 
publicists,  and  the  systems  of  moralists.  The  necessity  which 
constantly  summons  us  to  exercise  this  sagacity  in  dealing  with 
questions  of  conscience  affords  a  constant  opportunity  for  im- 
provement in  moral  tact  and  sensibility,  and  constitutes  one  of 
the  most  important  conditions  of  man's  moral  education  and 
discipline.  In  these  inductions,  however,  we  are  not  limited  to 
generalizations  from  the  known  tendencies  of  human  actions ; 
nor  to  their  effects,  as  these  have  been  exemplified  in  human 
experience,  or  recorded  in  human  history.  The  inner  forces  and 
tendencies  of  man's  nature,  whether  they  are  instincts,  desires, 
or  affections,  furnish  often  strong  probabilities  and  even  decisive 
evidence  of  the  kinds  of  action  which  nature  in  general  prescribes, 
and  warrant  us  in  making  confident  inductions  as  to  the  char- 
acter and  authority  of  moral  rules.  It  is  of  little  consequence, 
whether,  in  such  cases,  we  interpret  the  rule  as  a  revelation  from 
God,  or  a  law  of  human  nature,  so  long  as  it  rests  on  a  perceived 
fitness  which  we  cannot  but  acknowledge,  and  which  we  accept 
as  a  safe  guide  and  binding  rule  for  conduct  and  character. 

§  149.  In  other  words,  the  materials  for  these  inductions  are 
twofold,  —  objective   and   subjective.     The    objective 

Materials 

are  those  broad  and  obvious  capacities  and  relation-  objective  and 

ships  which  constitute  human  nature,  individual  and  *^**J®«**^®* 

social,  and  indicate  the  ends  for  which  man  exists.     The  sub- 

jective  are  the  strong  impulses  or  feelings  which  impel  to  the 

accomplishment  of  these  ends. 

This  truth  is  illustrated  by  the  grounds  for  the  determination 

and  enforcement  of  parental  duties.    These  are  two- 
Example, 
fold:   (1)  those  manifest  and  manifold  advantages 

which  must  result  from  intrusting  to  parents  the  care  and  pro- 


308  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL  SCIENCE.  [§  150. 

tection  of  their  children,  and  (2)  the  strong  and  ineradicable 
affections  which  impel  to  parental  sers^ice  and  sacrifice.  In 
view  of  the  first  of  these  reasons,  civil  society  everywhere  recog- 
nizes and  enforces  parental  duties.  Public  sentiment  does  the 
same.  Every  reflecting  human  being  accepts  the  obligation, 
and  responds  to  the  argument  which  enforces  it.  But  these 
obvious  tendencies  to  good  —  as  we  have  intimated  —  do  by  no 
means  exhaust  the  argument  for  these  duties.  The  existence 
of  certain  special  affections  that  bind  the  parents,  especially  the 
mother,  to  the  child,  —  which  fix  her  heart  upon  it  in  a  special- 
izing and  tender  regard,  that  grows  by  subtile  processes,  and 
takes  precedence  of  every  other  affection  and  impulse,  —  would 
indicate  that  it  was  the  intention  of  nature,  that  these  affections 
should  ordinarily  be  implicitly  obeyed  and  cherished  as  the  most 
imperative  and  sacred. 

§  150.  To  any  induction  from  the  instincts  and  emotions,  it  is 
Objection  to  ^^^^^  objected,  that  it  founds  morality  on  sentiment 
using  the  ouly,  and  exalts  feeling  above  reason ;  and,  more- 
"***  over,  that  these  natural  feelings  often  conflict  with 
one  another,  and  consequently  all  of  them  cannot  rule.  It  may 
suflSce  to  say  in  reply,  that  inductions  of  this  kind  which  rest 
upon  feeling  are  not  founded  on  impulse  alone,  nor  on  impulse 
as  such,  but  on  impulse  as  interpreted  by  reason.  They  do  not 
justify  the  conclusion  that  the  existence  of  the  impulse  proves 
that  nature  intends  and  commands  that  the  impulse  or  emotion 
should  always  rule ;  but  only  under  certain  conditions.  The 
fact  that  these  natural  impulses  and  feelings  often  conflict,  and 
cannot  all  be  gratified,  proves  that  they  need  wise  interpretation 
and  intelligent  control,  but  by  no  means  that  their  force  and 
tenacity  are  not  important  data  for  interpreting  the  intentions 
and  commands  of  nature  and  of  duty. 

Following  this  line  of  thought,  we  observe  that  the  relation- 
Classification  ships  which  constitute  man's  social  and  individual 
of  duties.  economy  are  to  a  large  extent  enforced  by  certain 
affections  in  his  spiritual  constitution.     We  classify  and  divide 


§  151.]  CLASSIFICATION  OF  DUTIES,  309 

our  duties  by  the  prominent  relationships  which  are  conspicuous 
in  man's  individual  and  social  nature,  and  the  feelings  by  which 
they  are  attended  and  enforced.  The  first  correspond  to  the 
second,  and  the  two  usually  strengthen  one  another  as  indications 
and  evidences  of  duty.  As  a  consequence,  the  induction  of  rules 
becomes  easier  and  more  satisfactory,  being  founded  on  double 
evidence,  as  has  already  been  exemplified  in  the  case  supposed 
of  the  moral  obligation  which  enforces  parental  duties. 

§  151.  But  whether  it  be  relations  without  that  determine  our 
duties,  or  impulses  from  within,  one  or  both,  these 
duties  are  usually  defined  by  the  objects  with  which  ^uy  defined 
human   beings  are  connected,  and   on  which   their  ^^  *'^®^r 

objects. 

affections  and  actions  terminate.  We  define  the 
duties  of  men  by  the  objects  with  which  they  hold  distinguish- 
able relations,  and  to  which  they  are  usually  connected  by 
special  affections.  These  criteria  are  at  once  objective  and 
subjective.  Of  objects  other  than  one's  self,  there  are  four 
classes,  —  God,  nature,  animals,  and  men. 

It  is  also  true,  that  in  a  special  sense  also  each  man  holds 
special  relations  of  duty  to  himself.  This  might  give  us,  as  the 
ground  of  a  twofold  division,  the  relations  of  man  to  himself 
and  to  other  beings,  whether  sentient  or  insentient.  By  this 
grouping,  God,  human  beings,  animals,  and  the  physical  uni- 
verse would  fall  into  the  second  class,  involving  four  subdi- 
visions. The  most  common  division  of  duties  is  threefold, — 
duties  to  ourselves,  to  our  fellow-men,  and  to  God ;  duties  to 
animals  and  to  nature  being  treated  as  subordinate  to  one  or 
other  of  these  three. 

To  this  threefold  division,  two  objections  might  be,  and,  in- 
deed, often  have  been,  urged,  —  first,  that  many  of  the  duties 
which  man  owes  to  himself  must  be  determined  by  his  constitu- 
tion as  a  human  being.  But  it  is  evident  that  this  constitution 
can  neither  be  known  nor  defined  except  by  man's  relations  to 
nature,  to  his  fellow-men,  and  to  God.  It  would  follow,  it  is 
urged,  that  man's  duties  to  himself  must  very  largely  grow  out 


310  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL   SCIENCE.  [§  151. 

of  his  relations  to  other  beings,  and  must  consequently  include 
his  duties  to  them.  The  second  objection  is  in  principle,  though 
not  in  phrase,  the  same;  viz.,  that  every  duty  which  we  owe 
directly  to  others  we  indirectly  owe  to  ourselves,  inasmuch  as  if 
fulfilled  it  would  promote,  and  if  violated  it  would  hinder,  our 
personal  moral  culture  and  perfection.  In  familiar  language,  we 
are  said  to  owe  it  to  ourselves  to  discharge  every  duty  which 
we  owe  to  others.  Similarly,  every  duty  which  would  seem  to 
affect  ourselves  directly  and  exclusively  does  remotely  but  actu- 
ally fit  us  to  discharge  more  satisfactorily  our  duties  to  God  and 
our  neighbor,  and  therefore  becomes  in  a  sense  a  duty  to  God 
and  our  neighbor.  Every  duty  to  either,  as  it  is  discharged  or 
neglected,  also  becomes  a  means  of  moral  culture  to  ourselves, 
and  hence  is  enforced  by  a  special  obligation.  Then,  again, 
every  duty,  to  whomsoever  it  is  owed,  is  enforced  by  ourselves 
upon  ourselves,  and  becomes  in  a  certain  secondary  though  im- 
portant sense  a  duty  owed  to  ourselves,  so  far  as  it  is  imposed 
by  the  authority  of  the  individual  conscience  as  final  and 
supreme.  It  is  also  enforced,  or  rather  re-enforced,  by  the 
authority  of  God,  and  consequently  becomes  a  duty  to  God  as 
well  as  to  ourselves.  In  some  cases  it  is  re-enforced  by  the 
authority  of  those  of  our  fellow-men  to  whom  we  happen  to 
stand  in  special  relations  ;  and  thus  a  single  act  becomes  a  duty 
to  ourselves,  to  God,  and  to  our  fellow-men.  These  dis- 
tinctions may  seem  over-nice,  and  perhaps  merely  verbal :  yet 
they  deserve  attention  in  order  to  clear  the  subject  from  every 
possible  misconstruction,  and  to  put  us  on  our  guard  against 
confusion  of  thought  and  of  speech. 

We  sum  up  the  whole  matter  in  the  following  statements : 
Every  duty  is  in  an  important  sense  owed,  —  to  whomsoever,  or 
on  whomsoever  it  directly  terminates,  —  and  in  some  cases  is  a 
duty  to  more  or  fewer  of  our  fellow-men.  It  is  also  always  a  duty 
to  God.  But  inasmuch  and  in  so  far  as  our  actions,  including 
our  purposes  and  feelings,  immediately  affect  certain  persons 
or  things,  we  divide  and  classify  our  duties,  as  their  direct 


§152.]  CLASSIFICATION  OF  DUTIES.       ;,.  311 

objects  are  respectively,  (I.)  ourselves,  (II.)  our  fellow-men, 
(III.)   animals,    (IV.)   nature,  and   (V.)   God. 

§  152.  We  begin  with  our  duties  to  ourselves  ;  because,  for  the 
reason  already  given,  this  class  of  duties  includes  ,„^       ^    . 

•^    *=>  '  Why  we  begin 

the  immediate  and  direct  relations  of  our  actions  to  with  duties 
ourselves   alone,  and   their  indirect   results   in  our  *^  o«rseiTes. 
moral  culture  and  habits. 

A  correct  judgment  of  our  duties  to  ourselves  will  also  enable 
us  to  understand  and  appreciate  the  duties  which  we  owe  to  our 
fellow-men  in  their  various  forms,  and  their  relative  proportion 
and  importance.  The  law  which  requires  us  to  love  our  neigh- 
bor as  ourselves  supposes  or  implies  that  we  have  already 
determined  the  kind  and  degree  of  love  which  we  may  render  to 
ourselves  ;  not,  indeed,  the  love  which  we  render  in  fact,  which 
would  sanction  our  selfish  achievements  as  a  standard  of  duty, 
but  the  love  which  we  ought  to  render,  that  is,  an  unselfish  or 
moral  love.  The  Golden  Rule,  "  Whatsoever  ye  would  that  men 
should  do  to  you,  do  ye  even  so  to  them,"  also  supposes  that 
our  demands  upon  others  for  ourselves  should  be  limited  by 
some  fixed  standard  concerning  what  we  ought  to  wish  or 
expect  others  to  do  for  us,  and  implies  some  limitation  to  our 
expectations  and  wishes  for  and  our  interest  in  ourselves. 

Our  duties  to  ourselves  and  our  fellow-men  also  furnish  the 
principal,  the  most  important,  and  often  the  only  satisfactory 
criteria  by  which  to  determine  and  enforce  our  duties  to  the 
animated  and  the  unanimated  creation ;  inasmuch  as  these 
duties  are  chiefly  determined  by  man's  place  in  the  finite  uni- 
verse, and  the  ends  for  which  nature  and  animals  seem  to  exist. 

The  consideration  of  these  classes  of  duties  will  prepare  us  to 
understand  the  grounds  of  our  special  duties  to  God 
as  the  enforcer  of  all  duty  ;  inasmuch  as  he  enforces  ^i,at  sense, 
every  duty  by  the  rational  sanction  which  he  gives  *^^  <i«ties  are 

•^  -J      J  »  duties  to  God. 

to  each,  and  by  the  personal  authority  with  which  he 
makes  every  duty  to  others  to  be  a  supreme  and  personal  ser- 
vice to  himself. 


312    .  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL  SCIENCE.  [§  15a 


I. 

CHAPTER  11. 

DUTIES  TO  OURSELVES. -GENERAL  PRINCIPLES. 

§  153.  These  duties  have  already  been  defined  as  those  obliga- 
Pundamentai  ^^1  ^^ts  which  prominently  or  exclusively  affect 
principle.  man's  individual  well-being.  They  are  derived  from 
the  principle  that  man  is  morally  bound  to  choose,  to  feel,  and 
to  act,  in  such  a  way  as  to  effect  and  attain  the  highest  good 
possible  for  himself.  In  many  cases,  as  we  have  seen,  his  voli- 
tions, feelings,  and  actions  seem  to  terminate  in  himself  only, 
even  when  they  include  the  well-being  of  others.  But,  whether 
they  do  or  do  not  extend  beyond  himself,  so  fai*  as  they  affect 
himself  they  become  duties  to  himself. 

Subjectively  viewed,  they  are  limited  to  his  actual  or  possi- 
ble moral  activities;  i.e.,  to  the  acts  and  effects  of  choice. 
Thoughts,  emotions,  affections,  and  bodily  acts  are  not  duties 
at  all,  except  as  they  are  related  directly  or  remotely  to  the 
will ;  while  words  and  acts,  when  voluntary,  may  be  as  impor- 
tant duties  to  ourselves  as  are  the  inner  feelings  and  purposes. 

Objectively  considered,  those  activities  are  binding  which 
involve  or  promote  man's  highest  good  in  character  and  condi- 
tion, for  the  present  and  the  future,  directly  or  indirectly. 

It  should  be  remembered, — and  for  this  reason  the  thought 
is  repeated, — that  man  can  never  directly  choose  his  highest 
good.  This  would  imply  that  he  chooses  a  choice,  or  a  voluntary 
emotion  (§  28).       Both   are   impossible.     He  chooses  certain 


§154.]     DUTIES  TO   SELF:   GENERAL  PBINCIPLES.      313 

objects,  and  in  so  doing  he  is  bound  to  secure  his  highest  good 
in  the  form  of  those  desires  and  purposes  which  these  acts  of 
choice  involve.  The  relation  of  the  act  of  choosing,  to  the 
highest  good  of  the  individual,  gives  to  it  its  moral  character. 
Some  of  these  choices  and  their  results  seem  to  terminate  ex- 
clusively in  himself,  for  good  or  evil ;  and  hence  such  activities 
of  voluntary  preference  or  desire,  of  word  or  act,  are  duties  to 
himself.  These  duties  may  respect  his  character  or  condition, 
according  as  they  affect  his  feelings  or  states  morally,  making 
him  a  better  man  or  the  opposite ;  or,  as  they  bring  him  some 
form  of  natural  good,  either  psychical  or  material. 

The  duties  which  man  owes  to  himself  are  sometimes  conceived  as  im- 
plied in  the  precept,  "  Thou  shalt  love  thy  neighbor  as  {thou 
lovest)  thyself."    If  this  interpretation  is  allowed,  it  deserves    ^   '  ^® 
to  be  noticed  that  the  love  of  self  here  required  or  impliedly 
sanctioned  cannot  be  the  simple  (or  constitutional)  desire  of  happiness. 
Desire  by  itself,  least  of  all  the  desire  of  an  abstraction  which  can  have  no 
existence  or  impelling  force  separately  from  some  one  of  the  concrete 
forms  in  which  it  is  exemplified,  can  have  no  moral  quality  whatever. 
Only  a  special  voluntary  desire  can  be  right  or  wrong  ;  i.e.,  a  desire  de- 
fined by  some  object,  and,  moreover,  such  a  desire  when  vivified  by  the 
will  (cf.  §        ).    Happiness  as  such,  moreover,  cannot  be  the  object  of 
either  desire  or  volition.    Happiness  is  a  generalized  characteristic  of  many 
of  the  emotions,  so  far  as  they  include  the  element  of  desire,  which  always 
reaches  after  good. 

§  154.  The  objective  self  which  the  precept  requires  us  to 
love  is  pre-eminently  and  conspicuously  the  moral 

7  /.       -r,    .  ,   .1  ...  .1         «.     i .         T  The  objective 

self.     It  IS  not  the  sentient,  nor  the  affectional,  nor  g^jf  i^  also 
the  intellectual  self,  only,  or  apart,  which  we  are  t^e  moral 
permitted  to  love,  but  the  voluntary  and  personal 
self ;   not  the  separate   and  selfish,  but  the   social   and   self- 
sacrificing  self :  in  one  word,  it  is  the  human  self,  and  this,  not 
as  it  is,  but  in  its  ideal,  i.e.,  as  it  morally  ought  to  be.     This 
self,  in  addition  to  its  capacities  and  interests  as  an  individual, 
holds  manifold  relations  to  its  fellow.-men  and  to  God,  to  the 
future  and  unseen,  as  truly  as  to  the  present  and  sensible  life. 
Hence  the  actual,  much  less  the  ideal,  good  of  man  as  a  single 


314  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL  SCIENCE.  [§  154. 

self,  cannot  be  understood  apart  from  man's  relations  to  other 
beings.  Man  is  a  social,  political,  and  religious  animal ;  and 
his  individual  self  is  largely  made  up  of  his  social,  political, 
and  religious  capacities  and  susceptibilities.  It  follows  that  he 
cannot  love  himself  as  a  moral  person  without  respecting  the 
affections  and  actions  to  which  these  social  relations  give  rise, 
and  which  supplement  his  individual  life.  Separate  from  his 
fellow-men  and  his  Creator,  he  is  not  a  completed  man,  and 
can  neither  understand  nor  direct  himself.  He  cannot  Jinow 
his  own  nature  in  the  ideal  which  he  should  aim  to  realize  by 
his  individual,  i.e.,  his  voluntary  activity,  except  as  he  includes 
in  this  ideal  the  relations  which  he  holds  to  other  beings  in  the 
place  belonging  to  each,  and  the  duties  which  he  owes  to  them 
as  truly  as  to  himself. 

It  has,  however,   already  been  said,  that  there  are  duties 

which  man  is  properly  said  to  owe  to  himself,  even 

terminate        though,  in  every  single  instance,  tliese  acts  may  be 

with  our-        j^igQ  owed  to  his  fellow-men.     The  fact  that  such 

selres. 

actions  in  their  effects  pass  over  to  others,  and 
therefore  become  duties  to  them,  does  not  make  them  to  be  any 
the  less  really  duties  to  ourselves,  so  far  as  they  affect  our 
happiness  or  our  character.  Sometimes  the  two  relations  con- 
spire, and  give  a  double  or  it  may  be  a  triple  motive,  and  a 
complex  character,  to  the  same  individual  act.  It  often  happens 
that  the  same  act  is  at  once  a  duty  to  ourselves,  to  our  fellow- 
men,  and  to  God.  Frequently,  moreover,  the  claims  which 
arise  seem  to  conflict,  and  leave  us  in  doubt  which  should 
prevail,  involving  serious  speculative  and  practical  perplexity 
in  deciding  questions  of  duty. 

Duties  to  ourselves,  moreover,  cannot  be  as  definitely  formulated  and 
provided  for  by  rules  as  tlie  duties  which  we  owe  to  others. 
Duties  to  They  are  often  enforced  by  claims  "and  considerations  which 

ourse  Tes  ^^^  perfectly  known  to  ourselves,  and  which,  even  if  they 

defined.  were  known  to  others,  could  only  be  imperfectly  appreciated 

by  them.  The  circumstances  which  determine  and  enforce 
them  not  being  open  to  general  observation  and  appreciation,  they  cannot 


§155.]     DUTIES  TO  SELF:    GENERAL  PBINCIPLES.      815 

be  provided  for  so  explicitly  by  rules  as  might  be  desired.  Even  the  induc- 
tions and  rules  which  one  person  might  possibly  derive  from  his  own 
experience  could  not  be  applied  by  another,  even  to  himself.  The  moral 
claims  of  certain  persons  upon  others  —  as  their  parents,  children,  and 
neighbors  —  are  often  open  to  the  inspection  of  many,  and  can  be  enforced 
by  the  common  interests  or  the  common  sentiments  of  many  observers. 
But  the  circumstances  or  feelings  which  are  peculiar  to  an  individual,  and 
which  are  the  grounds  of  the  duties  which  he  owes  to  himself,  are  often 
such  as  to  be  incapable  of  being  justly  appreciated  except  by  the  individual 
alone.  No  observer  can  put  himself  in  the  place  of  another  man,  and 
know  what  are  his  inmost  needs.  For  these  reasons,  duties  to  ourselves 
are  incapable  of  being  as  exactly  defined  and  as  satisfactorily  formulated 
as  duties  to  others.  The  utmost  that  we  can  do  is  to  state  and  enforce 
certain  general  principles  which  may  serve  for  our  guidance  in  the  direc- 
tion of  conduct  and  the  formation  of  character,  and  leave  their  application 
to  our  individual  experiences  as  they  arise. 

§  155.  We  assume,  as  we  may,  that  our  duties  to  ourselves 
are  comprehended  and  enforced  by  the  general  obligation  to 
effect  our  highest  good. 

This  highest  good  is  broadly  distinguished  as  good  of  charac- 
ter^ and  good  of  condition;  the  one  describing  what 
a  man  is  in  his  personal,  pre-eminently  his  moral  character 
self,  —  that  is,  in  his  purposes  and  affections  ;  and  *"**  ^^^^  ®^ 

condition. 

the  other,  every  thing  besides,  which  he  desires  or 
possesses,  whether  it  be  knowledge  and  artistic  skill,  or  wealth 
and  power.  Both  these  forms  of  good  were  distinguished  by  the 
ancient  moralists  in  a  general  way,  and  both  were  recognized  as 
essential  elements  of  the  summum  honum.  The  moderns  ordi- 
narily do  not  distinguish  precisely  between  what  a  man  is,  and 
what  he  has,  except  in  a  moral  sense  ;  for  the  reason,  that  much 
that  is  attained  by  culture  and  discipline,  in  intellect  and  skill 
and  grace,  pertains  to  what  he  is,  when  contrasted  with  what  he 
has  in  wealth  or  power  or  honor.  We  usually  limit  the  good 
of  character  to  moral  excellence,  and  set  this  in  contrast  to 
every  thing  besides  that  is  desirable.  «    .  ^  ^ 

•^  °  ^  Good  of  char- 

We  also  distinguish  good  of  every  kind  as  im-   acter  always 
mediate   and   remote,  and  find  in  this  a  factor  or  ^"P'®"*®* 
relation  which  ought  to   be   considered.      The  divisions  thus 


316  ELEMENTS  OF  MOBAL  SCIENCE.  [§  155. 

constituted  by  no  means  coincide  with  those  of  condition  and 
character,  and  yet  both  classes  of  these  relations  determine 
many  of  our  duties  to  ourselves.  Immediate  good  of  condition 
may  not  always  be  compatible  with  that  which  is  remote,  and 
it  becomes  our  duty  to  sacrifice  the  one  to  the  other.  Good  of 
character,  however,  is  always  supreme.  It  may  never  be  sacri- 
ficed, either  to  present  or  future  good  of  condition.  Moral 
good  should  always  be  the  controlling  aim  and  law.  It  may 
be  doubted,  indeed,  whether,  in  the  strictest  sense,  any  present 
moral  activity  has  no  relations  to  the  future,  and  can  therefore 
be  said  to  be  only  of  present  obligation.  It  is  certain,  however, 
that,  in  the  moral  intentions,  there  can  be  no  conflict  between 
the  motives  of  the  present  and  the  motives  in  prospect.  Viewed 
in  their  relations  to  the  future,  the  feeblest  wish,  the  faintest 
aspiration,  and  the  most  casual  resolve,  may  give  energy  to  the 
character  in  warp  and  woof,  and  strengthen  it  to  meet  some 
future  test  or  strain. 

But  let  it  be  supposed  that  no  ethical  consequences  will 
follow  from  a  present  moral  activity,  and  that  no  relations  to 
habit  or  moral  growth  are  in  question.  Let  a  man  be  alone,  and 
isolated  from  human  society ;  let  him  find  himself  upon  a  des- 
ert island,  or  be  immured  in  a  solitary  cell,  and  by  the  supposi- 
tion left  to  control  his  thoughts  and  feelings  without  respect  to 
any  future  consequences,  even  to  his  own  moral  self.  Which 
of  his  impulses,  in  such  a  case,  should  he  sanction  and  allow 
by  his  will?  Obviously,  those  which  are  naturally  the  highest 
and  best.  These  only  are  sanctioned  by  reason,  or  enforced  by 
conscience,  or  commanded  by  God,  as  his  present  duties  to  him- 
self. We  say,  in  general,  the  psychical  activities  should  take 
precedence  of  the  sensual ;  and,  of  the  spiritual,  the  benevolent 
should  prevail  above  the  egoistic,  by  their  own  natural  superi- 
ority, provided  no  other  claims  intervene.  This  narrow  exam- 
ple of  a  limited  sphere  or  opportunity  of  duties  to  one*s  self 
supposes  an  original  natural  difiference  or  gradation  in  the  natu- 
ral quality  of  the  springs  of   action.     That  such  a  difference 


§156.]     DUTIES   TO  SELF:    GENERAL  PRINCIPLES.      317 

exists,  we  have  already  assumed  (§  17).  Were  there  no  such 
difference,  the  more  intense  or  energetic  impulses  would  take 
precedence,  and  carry  the  day  above  the  feebler  or  less  active, 
by  mere  natural  energy.  That  these  differences  of  quality  do 
not  exclude  a  regard  to  remote  effects  and  consequences,  will 
be  seen  in  its  place.  In  this  gradation  of  natural  differences 
of  value  or  worth,  we  find  a  rule  of  precedence  for  all  those 
acts  which  relate  only  to  ourselves,  in  the  maxim,  The  lower 
impulses  may  be  indulged  and  allowed^  so  long  as  they  do  not 
exclude  or  interfere  with  the  higher,  either  for  the  present  or 
the  future. 

§  156.  This  example  of  duties  to  ouselves  emphasizes  the 
moral  importance  of  a  multitude  of  voluntary  im-  ^^^.^^  .^^  ^^^ 
pulses,  affections,  purposes,  and  resolves,  which  are  tance  of  sim- 

1  J        re     ^-        -u  1  i.      pie  emotions. 

never  expressed,  or  made  effective  by  word  or  act. 
Their  indirect  effect  upon  the  habits  of  thought  and  feeling,  and 
their  future  influence,  is  indeed  not  unimportant ;  and  herein  we 
always  find  a  reason  for  their  supremacy.  But  apart  from  this, 
these  voluntary  impulses  themselves,  whether  called  the  heart, 
the  disposition,  or  the  will,  designate  a  constantly  active  and 
permanent  state,  varying  in  energy,  yet  ever  the  same.  They 
constitute  the  good  will  of  which  Kant  says,  with  so  much  sim- 
plicity and  force,  "There  is  nothing  which  we  can  think  of, 
anywhere  in  this  world,  nor,  indeed,  anywhere  outside  the  same, 
which  deserves  to  be  esteemed  as  good  without  qualification, 
excepting  only  a  good  will."  ^  Hence  the  direction,  "Keep  thy 
heart  with  all  diligence,  for  out  of  it  are  the  issues  of  life."  "A 
good  man,  out  of  the  good  treasure  of  his  heart,  bringeth  forth 
good  things."  To  possess  and  strengthen  this  good  will,  is  the 
one  constant  duty  of  man  in  respect  to  character.  To  manifest 
and  energize,  by  constant  activity,  a  good  will  or  a  good  heart, 

1  Es  ist  iiberall  nichts  in  der  Welt,  ja  iiberhaupt  auch  ausser  derselbea, 
zu  denken  moglich,  was  oline  Einschrankung  fiir  gut  konute  gehalten 
werden,  als  allein  ein  guter  Wille.  —  Grundlegung  zur  Metaphysik  der 
Sitten. 


318  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL   SCIENCE.  [§  15G. 

is  the  comprehensive  duty  which  man  owes  to  his  present  self, 
as  contrasted  with,  and  yet  including,  the  duties  which  he  owes 
to  his  future  self.  It  is  the  glory  of  the  Christian  morality,  that 
it  enforces  this  duty  as  supreme,  and  by  requirements  so  strict 
and  uncompromising ;  and  that  it  recognizes,  in  the  moral  con- 
dition of  the  inner  man,  the  centre  and  seat  of  all  moral  respon- 
sibility. But,  while  it  thus  makes  the  moral  perfection  and 
culture  of  the  individual  the  supreme  object  of  his  active  ener- 
gies, it  sets  aside  and  discourages  selfishness  in  any  form  by 
enjoining  self-sacrifice  and  self-denial  as  the  indispensable  con- 
dition of  attaining  the  highest  perfection ;  its  cardinal  and 
most  comprehensive  principle  being  expressed  in  the  words, 
"  He  that  fiudeth  his  life  shall  lose  it,  and  he  that  loseth  it  for 
my  sake  shall  find  it." 

The  best  of  the  ancient  schools,  especially  the  Stoics,  made  the  duty  of 
perfecting  one's  self  to  be  supreme  and  controlling;  and  in 
this  respect  they  deserve  to  be  compared  with  the  Christian 
self-cnltare.  teachers.  But  while  this  duty  was  earnestly  taught  and  rec- 
ognized by  many  as  the  chief  end  of  man,  and  under  the 
motive  that  he  might  make  himself  worthy  of  the  society  of  the  ideally 
perfect  celestials  in  the  city  of  God,  the  excellence  which  was  sought  for 
was  self-perfection  for  self-gratulation,  rather  than  self-sacrifice  for  the 
good  of  others  from  love  to  others.  It  is  true  that  Stoicism,  in  its  honest 
allegiance  to  truth,  recognized  the  humblest  of  men  in  condition  as  equal 
with  the  most  exalted.  But  it  rarely  recognized  or  loved  them  as  breth- 
ren; and  hence,  in  its  best  type,  it  lacked  the  spirit  of  sympathy  and  pity, 
of  humane  and  loving  tenderness,  for  the  realization  of  which  the  world 
waited  so  long.  Hence  Stoicism,  with  its  self-culture,  and  as  a  conse- 
quence of  it,  often  fostered  a  selfish  indifference  to  the  well-being  of  others, 
and  found,  in  the  contemplation  of  its  loftiest  ideals,  an  incitement  to 
selfish  and  self-satisfied  pride  in  place  of  a  loving  discipline  to  humility. 
That  style  of  morality  in  modern  times  which  is  inspired  by  culture  only, 
wiiether  it  take  the  Christian  type  of  a  Pharisaic  interest  in  one's  inner 
perfection  as  a  ground  of  spiritual  pride,  or  a  selfish  and  absorbing  care  for 
one's  eminent  qualifications  for  the  celestial  rewards,  or  the  unchristian 
attitude  of  independence  of  higher  help  for  forgiveness  or  sympathy,  is 
ifearly  akin  to  Stoicism,  because  it  is  self-absorbed,  self-relying,  self- 
satisfied,  and  in  striking  contrast  with  the  flexible,  self-forgetting,  sym- 
pathizing, and  self-sacrificing  type  of  humanity  which  Christianity  always 
proposes  as  its  ideal,  and  so  often  turns  into  reality. 


§  157.]    DUTIES   TO   SELF:    GENERAL  PBINCIPLES.      319 

§  157.  But  duties  to  ourselves  are  not  limited  to  the  character. 
They  also  respect  the  external  condition;  i.e.,  the  j^^^^^^  ^^.  . 
health,  the  comfort,  the  knowledge,  the  accomplish-  respect  the 
ments  bodily  and  mental,  the  wealth,  the  reputation, 
and  many  other  means  of  good  which  it  is  a  man's  duty  to 
gain  under  the  limitations  and  restraints  which  the  law  of  duty 
imposes.  These  opportunities  man  is  not  only  permitted  to  use, 
but  it  may  be  wrong  for  him  to  refuse  to  employ  them.  Good 
of  condition  or  circumstances  is  not  limited  to  physical  advan- 
tages or  the  means  of  the  same,  nor  to  the  means  of  gratifying 
the  tastes,  or  even  the  social  and  domestic  affections.  It  in- 
cludes every  thing  which  contributes  to  security  or  comfort,  as 
reputation,  security,  property,  whether  these  means  or  condi- 
tions of  well-being  are  physical,  intellectual,  aesthetic,  social, 
jural,  or  political. 

Duties  that  concern  both  character  and  condition  also  respect 
both  the  present  and  the  future.  Man  can,  to  a  ^^^  ^^^ 
certain  extent,  forecast  the  future  in  respect  to  his  ent  and  the 
purposes  and  desires,  as  these  may  affect  his  future 
character  and  well-being,  or  in  any  sense  determine  his  outward 
actions.  Hence  the  relations  of  time  become  very  important 
in  determining  questions  of  duty.  A  future  result,  whether  of 
character  or  condition,  so  far  as  it  is  foreseen  and  consented  to, 
is  a  present  act,  if  not  provided  against.  Man,  as  a  being  who 
looks  before  and  after,  cannot  divest  himself  of  responsibility 
for  the  future  consequences  of  his  acts,  especially  so  far  as 
these  acts  affect  himself.  If  these  consequences  will  certainly 
accumulate  at  an  increased  ratio,  many  actions,  which  might  be 
indifferent  for  the  present,  are  invested  with  the  gravest  im- 
portance for  this  reason,  and  this  alone.  A  bodily,  intellectual, 
or  aesthetic  activity  or  enjoyment  may  in  its  present  results 
be  desirable,  and  yet,  in  its  future  consequences  to  ourselves, 
be  injurious  to  the  interests  and  damaging  to  the  character. 
An  indulgence  which  for  the  moment  is  morally  innocent  may 
stimulate  a  natural  appetite  to  such  a  degree  as  to  render  prob- 


320  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL   SCIENCE.     [§§  158,  159. 

able  an  immoral  indulgence  when  special  temptations  are  pre- 
sented. An  innocent  amusement,  which  would  otherwise  be 
innocent  or  even  salutary,  may  for  this  reason  become  morally 
wrong. 

§  158.  Hence  the  obligation  to  prudence,  or  wise  forecast, 
Obligation  to  reaches  every  feeling  and  action  which  may  affect 
prudence.  our  future  in  respect  either  to  character  or  condition. 
It  is  not  enough  that  an  act  or  feeling  may  be  harmless  and 
even  desirable  in  its  present  relations  and  effects,  if  it  is  injuri- 
ous or  even  hazardous  to  the  tastes,  the  temper,  the  habits,  the 
appetites,  or  the  desires,  in  the  future,  or  if  it  anyway  threatens 
evil  to  the  reputation  or  the  interests.  The  present  aspect  of 
any  feeling  or  action  should  never  decide  any  question,  provided 
a  wise  and  honest  forecast  can  anticipate  or  even  forebode  any 
positive  evil  to  the  interests  or  character,  which  our  judgment 
requires  us  to  avoid.  We  do  not  say  that  evils  which  are 
feared  are  never  to  be  hazarded.  They  are  often  not  only  to 
be  risked,  but  to  be  manfully  faced  and  defied.  But  if  the  con- 
science would  not  permit  us  to  accept  them  foT  the  present,  no 
more  should  moral  prudence  allow  us  to  risk  them  in  the 
future ;  and  this,  whether  the  evil  affects  the  character  or  the 
interests.  Recklessness  and  foolhardiness  is  a  gross  offence 
against  that  forecast  which  invests  man  with  his  peculiar 
dignity,  and  in  every  form  of  improvidence  is  a  sin  against 
the  conscience.  Whatever  fair  forms  of  generosity,  or  trust 
in  Providence,  or  unselfishness,  it  may  assume,  it  is  condemned 
by  the  honest  conscience,  as  it  is  by  the  judgment  of  good 
men. 

§  159.  The  operation  of  Jidbit  is  also  a  most  important  ele- 

-,  ,  .,  .  ment  in  determining  our  duties  to  ourselves.  The 
Relations  to  » 

the  habits  fact  that  thcsc  laws  act  uppn  and  within  the  consti- 
"*  "^  *"  *  tution  of  the  soul,  under  laws  of  necessity  which 
can  be  foreseen,  brings  its  operation  and  its  foreseen  results 
distinctly  within  the  sphere  of  duty,  and  subjects  it  to  the 
responsibilities  which  arise  from  freedom,  when  freedom  is  con- 


§160.]     DUTIES  TO  SELF:    GENERAL  PRINCIPLES.      321 

nected  with  forecast.  The  law  itself  by  which  the  present  may 
affect  the  future  is  most  beneficent  in  its  design,  and  may  be- 
come most  salutary  in  its  effects.  By  means  of  it,  the  voluntary 
character  becomes  fixed  for  good  or  evil.  Through  its  opera- 
tion, prudence  is  exalted  into  a  moral  virtue  of  supreme  impor- 
tance, and  invested  with  the  authority  of  a  constant  duty  in 
respect  to  what  may  befall  ourselves,  and  what  we  may  become 
in  character  and  power,  or  may  effect  with  others  by  our  ex- 
ample. For  this  reason,  recklessness  of  the  future  in  respect 
to  any  risk  in  character  or  condition,  which  may  come  from 
habits  of  evil,  is  a  prime  offence  against  one's  self. 

The  duties  which  we  owe  to  our  future  selves,  so  far  as  they 
respect  what  we  may  become  under  the  law  of  habit  jj^^  ^^g. 
and  growth,  are  popularly  designated  as  the  duties  i&nated. 
of  self -education,  self -culture,  and  self-discipline.  Each  of  these 
duties  takes  a  special  shade  of  meaning,  according  as  the  in- 
tellect, the  feelings,  or  the  moral  nature  are  concerned.  Self- 
education  is  usually,  though  not  uniformly,  limited  to  the  training 
of  the  intellect ;  culture,  to  the  training  of  the  aesthetic  sensi- 
bilities, or  their  expression  ;  discipline,  to  the  formation  and 
direction  of  the  motives.  When  special  activities  are  employed 
for  the  single  or  chief  end  of  subjective  improvement,  they 
might  be  called  ascetic,  from  the  Greek  do-Kco>.  But  ascetic 
and  asceticism,  as  actually  used,  uniformly  imply  some  special 
diflSculty  or  obstacle  to  overcome,  involving  some  reluctant  or 
painful  effort  or  sacrifice. 

§  160.  Mere  asceticism,  in  the  unfavorable  sense,  practises 
and  enforces  the  cultivation  —  or,  as  the  case  may 
be,  the  repression  or  mortification  —  of  an  impulse 
or  habit,  for  the  simple  design  of  strengthening  or  weakening 
its  positive  and  therefore  its  relative  energy.  It  is  analogous  to 
the  processes  of  physical  training,  by  which  a  set  of  members 
or  organs  is  artificially  strengthened  by  special  movements 
directed  exclusively  to  this  end.  In  both  cases,  the  physical 
and  ethical  activity  or  endurance  is  directly  assumed,  simply 


322  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL   SCIENCE.  [§  160. 

for  the  sake  of  self-training  and  discipline.  When  applied  to 
moral  discipline,  it  has  been  furthered  and  sanctioned  by  the 
Stoical  theory  that  indifference  to  many  gratifications,  par- 
ticularly those  of  a  sensuous  character,  is  an  indication  of 
Christianity  Hianhood  or  manly  self-suflficiency  or  self-control, 
not  ascetic,  ^he  Christian  morality  has  also  been  supposed  to 
sanction  what  is  called  a  "mortification  of  the  flesh,"  or  the 
denial  of  sensuous  indulgences,  for  the  purpose  of  training  to 
the  habit  of  indifference,  or  of  superiority  to  sensuous  and 
social  pleasures,  and  to  the  amenities  of  art  and  culture.  The 
superior  attractions  of  the  future  life,  the  absolute  obligation 
of  Christian  self-denial,  the  necessity  of  resisting  evil  in  its 
most  formidable  and  protean  forms,  and  the  uncompromising 
spirit  of  Christian  duty,  very  naturally  invested  the  Christian 
spirit  with  a  stern  aspect  towards  the  Epicurean  side  of  human- 
ity, and  led  perhaps  to  an  unnatural  interpretation  of  its  own 
ideal  of  human  perfection.  Hence  great  ethical  importance  was 
soon  attached  by  many  to  a  life  of  voluntary  hardship  and  self- 
abnegation  ;  and  the  highest  sanctity  has  been  attributed  to 
such  a  life,  especially  when  consecrated  to  the  supposed  service 
of  higher,  and  pre-eminently  to  religious,  aims  and  duties.  The 
theory  of  asceticism  in  its  principle  is  open  to  the  following 
objections  ;  In  simple  self-denial  or  voluntary  suffering,  except 
in  the  active  service  and  exercise  of  a  higher  impulse,  there  can 
be  no  moral  excellence.  Self-inflicted  suffering,  when  it  is  not 
required  to  accomplish  some  manifest  good,  is  manifestly  a  sin 
against  nature  in  every  relation,  and  therefore  against  the  laws 
of  duty.  What  individuals  need  as  a  moral  discipline,  may 
be  more  safely  trusted  to  a  higher  and  better  Master  than 
assumed  by  ourselves,  or  imposed  by  others.  The  waste  and 
sacrifice  of  good,  and  the  rejection  of  it  when  it  may  be  inno- 
cently enjoyed,  would  seem  in  its  very  nature  and  by  its  very 
terms  to  be  an  offence  against  the  conscience,  which  obliges  us 
to  seek  our  highest  well-being.  It  is  also  against  the  spirit 
of  Christianity.      Christianity,  indeed,  inculcates   an   elevated 


§161.]  MAN'S  DUTIES   TO  HIMSELF,  323 

spirituality  in  the  tastes  and  aims,  and  a  complete  indifference 
to  sensuous  good  as  compared  with  that  which  is  higher,  as  also 
a  prompt  and  complete  mortification  of  every  sensuous  impulse 
the  instant  it  threatens  to  become  sensual,  and  a  martyr-like 
courage  in  facing  suffering  and  death  for  the  Master  or  his 
cause.  But  Christianity  also  teaches  the  cardinal  truth,  that 
the  end  of  conquest  over  evil  is  to  strengthen  the  love  of  the 
good.  It  is  by  faith  in  that  which  is  fitted  to  satisfy  and  fill 
the  soul,  that  the  better  impulses  become  triumphant,  and 
temptation  is  overcome.  Its  lesson  is,  ''Walk  in  the  spirit, 
and  ye  shall  not  fulfil  the  lusts  of  the  flesh."  "This  is  the 
victory  that  overcometh  the  world,  even  our  faith." 

§  161.  Ethically  considered,  the  decisive  objection  against 
asceticism  is,  that  it  overlooks  the  duty  of  stimulat-  objection  to 
ing  the  higher  impulses,  which  alone  can  make  any  asceticism, 
discipline  successful,  or  reward  it  by  a  habit  of  good.  In  the 
mere  endurance  of  evil,  or  abnegation  of  good,  there  is  no 
moral  excellence,  and  there  may  be  selfishness  which  is  cruel 
and  malignant.  The  self-denial  and  self-culture  which  are 
not  sustained  by  that  cheerful  sacrifice  which  a  fit  occasion 
stimulates  and  elicits  are  in  danger  of  being  weak,  heartless, 
and  reluctant,  if  not  selfish,  hypocritical,  and  proud,  simply 
because  such  discipline  is  unnatural.  Enforced  gymnastics  of 
evei^  kind  are  in  constant  danger  of  being  tedious  and  heart- 
less. Enforced  gymnastics  in  self-culture  are  almost  certain  to 
become  so. 

Asceticism  in  its  spirit  and  theory  fails  for  two  reasons.  It 
overlooks  the  truth  that  life  itself,  in  the  circumstances  of 
which  it  is  made  up,  is  appointed  for  us  by  a  Master  who  is 
wiser  than  ourselves,  and  with  the  express  purpose  of  exercising 
his  pupils  in  the  methods  which  are  best  fitted  for  their  needs. 
This  discipline,  as  we  may  suppose,  involves  all  the  self-denial 
and  patience  and  self-control ;  all  the  pain,  the  mortification  and 
grief,  which  are  required  for  the  best  good  of  each  individual. 
If  the  pupil  imposes  on  himself  new  and  special  tasks  which 


324  ELEMENTS  OF  MOBAL   SCIENCE.  [§  161. 

the  Master  does  not  require,  he  usurps  the  Master's  place. 
Acting  in  this  -spirit,  he  will  be  in  danger  of  losing  sight  of 
the  end  in  the  means,  and  fail  to  make  his  costly  self-denials 
and  painful  disciplines  serve  to  any  result  except  his  self-com- 
placency and  pride.  Asceticism  in  the  service  of  philosophy 
or  religion  has  often  miserably  cheated  itself  of  the  end  which 
it  proposes  to  achieve.  It  has  distorted  the  culture  and  im- 
peded the  usefulness  and  blighted  the  lives  of  multitudes,  in 
the  name  of  temperance,  virtue,  and  religion.  The  germs  of 
it  were  distinctly  recognized,  and  as  distinctly  repressed  and 
•disowned,  in  the  early  Christian  Church ;  but  they  have  not 
been  wholly  exterminated,  and  never  will  be  as  long  as  human 
nature  remains  what  it  is.  Hence,  in  recognizing  the  duties  of 
ethical  self-culture  as  supreme  among  the  duties  which  man 
owes  to  himself,  it  should  be  carefully  distinguished  from  every 
ascetic  strife  against  nature,  and  the  painful  denial  of  the  rights 
of  man  to  innocent  and  healthful  indulgences. 

The  various  questions  which  constantly  arise  in  respect  to 
amusements,  tastes,  and  enjoyments,  seem  all  to  be  settled  by 
the  two  mottoes:  "Every  creature  of  God  is  good  if  it  be 
received  with  thanksgiving ;  for  it  is  sanctified  by  the  word  of 
God,  and  prayer;"  "No  man  liveth  to  himself,  and  no  man 
dieth  to  himself."  The  first  secures  our  individual  liberty  and 
rights.  The  second  teaches  us  to  regard  the  feelings  and 
judgment  of  others  in  a  wise  but  not  a  servile  spirit ;  in  the 
temper  of  cheerful  self-sacrifice,  but  never  of  unsympathetic 
intolerance. 


§  162.]  THE  BODILY  LIFE,  325 


CHAPTER    III. 

DUTIES  WHICH  RESPECT  THE  BODILY  APPETITES  AND 
THE   BODILY   LIFE. 

§  162.  The  appetites  are  those  of  food  and  drink,  of  rest 
and  sleep,  and  of  sex.  They  depend  on  the  bodily 
constitution  for  their  excitement  and  energy.  More  character- 
exactly,  they  pertain  to  those  endowments  which  we  ^^  * 
call  the  psycho-physical,  in  which  body  and  soul  suffer  and 
act  together,  by  laws  which  are  as  yet  imperfectly  determined. 
As  psychical  experiences,  they  are  engrossing  and  imperious 
when  excited  by  the  presence  or  thought  of  the  occasions  or 
objects  which  address  or  stimulate  them.  Some  of  them  —  as 
hunger  and  thirst,  weariness  and  tendency  to  sleep  —  can  be 
controlled  only  to  a  certain  extent,  when  the  bodily  condition 
arouses  the  impulse,  and  requires  its  gratification,  or  yields  to 
its  power.  The  bodily  health  and  life  also  require  that  these 
appetites  should  be  controlled  in  respect  to  the  manner  and 
extent  of  indulgence,  in  subjection  to  other  desires,  largely  the 
prudential  so-called,  which  are  confessedly  superior  to  those 
which  are  corporeal,  and  are  designed  to  regulate  and  control 
them. 

The  sexual  appetite  has  for  its  immediate  object  the  trans- 
mission of  life  to  other  individuals.  Its  indulgence  is  not  in- 
dispensable to  the  health  or  life  of  the  individual  whom  it 
excites  and  impels.  It  is  not  irresistible  in  the  same  sense  as 
are  hunger  and  thirst ;  for  it  can  be  controlled  by  withdrawing 


326  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL   SCIENCE.  [§  163. 

the  attention  from  the  objects  and  thoughts  which  would  excite 
it,  in  a  sense  and  to  an  extent  which  hunger  and  thirst  do  not 
permit.  This  desire,  more  eminently  than  other  appetites,  is 
capable  of  being  associated  with  the  most  elevating  and  unself- 
ish affections,  and  superadds  to  the  promotion  of  the  ends  of 
animal  existence  the  noblest  accompaniments,  in  the  affectional, 
moral,  and  spiritual  training  and  character. 

§  163.  As   direct   experiences   of   the   conscious   spirit,  the 

gratified  appetites  differ  from  the  other  sensibilities 

guishe'd  f rom  ^^  ^^^^  ^^^^^  gratifications  are  necessarily  of  short 

other  sensi-     duration.     So  soon  as  hunger  and  thirst  are  satiated, 

bilities. 

the  possibility  of  further  indulgence  is  excluded 
for  a  longer  or  shorter  period.  The  enjoyment  of  the  most 
luxurious  feast  cannot  be  indefinitely  protracted,  even  by  the 
most  elaborate  refinements  of  cookery,  nor  even  by  the  most 
varied  divertisements  of  social  intercourse  and  intellectual  or 
artistic  excitement.  Sleep  will  not  continue  forever,  even  to 
the  savage  who  is  engorged  by  gluttonous  excess  or  a  'sensual 
debauch.  This  single  fact  reveals  at  once  a  discrimination 
between  the  sensual  and  other  enjoyments,  as  limited,  and  for 
that  reason  as  inferior.  This  inferiority  of  itself  indicates,  that, 
in  the  economy  of  nature,  sensual  is  inferior  to  other  good. 

It  is  also  most  obvious  to  human  experience,  that  the  capacity 
for  what  are  called  the  more  enduring  or  permanent  of  human 
enjoyments  —  as,  for  example,  for  social,  intellectual,  and  aes- 
thetic gratifications — depends  on  the  bodily  condition,  and  that 
this  is  directly  dependent  upon  a  strict  and  regulated  control 
of  all  the  bodily  appetites.  This  circumstance,  which  is  one  of 
the  first  lessons  of  individual  experience,  inculcates  a  sharp 
and  positive  lesson,  of  prudential  if  not  of  higher  obligation, 
that  the  appetites  were  designed  to  be  held  under  control. 
Nature,  as  we  have  already  seen,  enforces  upon  every  man 
this  law :  So  soon  as  the  indulgence  of  any  appetite  in  kind 
or  degree  defeats  the  end  for  which  such  appetite  exists,  or 
was  provided,  that  indulgence  is  forbidden  by  the  law  of  duty. 


§  164.]  THE  BODILY  LIFE.  327 

This  law  is  absolute  so  far  as  the  appetites  are  regarded  as 

conditions  for  the  bodily  health  or  life.     Whether  the  health 

or  life  may  not,  under  certain  circumstances,  be  hazarded  or 

sacrificed  from  higher  motives,   we  do  not  here  inquire   (cf. 

§176). 

§  164.  If   we  leave  these  prudential   considerations   out   of 

view,  and  regard  the  appetites  and  their  gratification 

as  affections  of  the  conscious  spirit,  we  may  safely  ^jyft^e 

apply  to  them  the  following  axiom  :  Sensuous  grati-   ^^^^^^  sensi- 

bilities. 

fications,  when  brought  mto  competition  with  intel- 
lectual and  emotional  pleasures,  are  inferior  in  quality  and 
worth.  The  man  who  seeks  his  highest  good  must  in  every 
such  case  set  aside  that  which  he  knows  to  be  inferior.  The 
case  supposed  is  one  in  which  the  man  is  shut  up  to  the  direct 
comparison  of  the  two  opposing  impulses,  unclothed  of  all 
associated  emotions.  More  commonly  some  reason  or  excuse 
for  sensuous  indulgence  suggests  itself  in  its  production  of 
some  near  or  remote  benefit  to  body  or  mind.  But,  in  any 
case  in  which  the  conflict  is  simply  between  the  two,  that 
which  is  known  to  be  of  the  highest  natural  worth  must  pre- 
vail under  our  general  formula  of  duty ;  and  this  law  is  at  once 
enforced  with  moral  authority  upon  the  consenting  judgment. 

As  has  already  been  asserted,  the  present  comparative  worth 
of  two  conflicting  impulses  will  rarely  be  the  only  relation  in 
which  they  solicit  the  choice  of  the  will.  It  rarely  happens  that 
the  most  animalized  of  men  conceives  his  pleasures  as  simply 
animal  experiences.  There  is  wrought  into  almost  every  bodily 
indulgence  or  solicitation,  even  to  the  most  sensualized,  some 
association  of  memory  or  imagination  or  hope,  which  takes 
somewhat  from  its  animal  grossness,  and  thus  breaks  the  shock 
of  a  direct  collision  between  a  higher  good  and  a  gratification 
which  is  purely  animal.  Let  such  accessories  be  wholly  re- 
moved, and  the  essential  inferiority  of  that  which  is  simply 
beastly  is  revealed  more  distinctly  to  the  honest  judgment  of 
every  man. 


328  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL  SCIENCE.     [§§  165, 166. 

§  165.  The  relation  of  the  animal  indulgences  to  the  future  is 
How  related  the  most  important  element  in  deciding  their  claims 
to  the  fatnre.  ^  indulgence.  Like  all  the  psychical  impulses,  they 
obey  the  general  law  of  habit.  This  general  tendency  is  inten- 
sified by  their  special  capacity  to  gain  a  tenacious  and  exclusive 
hold  of  the  imagination,  unless  they  are  kept  under  constant 
subjection.  Their  hold  of  the  memory,  and  intrusion  upon  the 
imagination,  are  doubtless  owing  to  a  peculiarity  of  the  psycho- 
physical in  man,  by  which,  as  affection  or  desire,  it  increases 
by  indulgence  in  tenacity,  capacity,  and  impulse.  The  fact 
cannot  be  denied,  that  no  other  solicitations  can  come  into  com- 
petition with  those  which  address  the  senses  of  the  man  whose 
memory  and  imagination  have  become  thoroughly  sensualized. 
The  glutton,  the  drunkard,  and  the  debauchee  not  only  for  the 
time  being  exclude  the  higher  sensibilities  by  those  which  are 
inferior,  on  those  occasions  when  opportunity  and  appetite 
tempt  to  gratification,  but  they  limit  their  capacities  and  tastes 
for  other  enjoyments  when  opportunity  and  desire  for  these 
are  wanting.  Even  then  the  imagination  becomes  possessed  as 
by  a  sensual  demon,  which  never  ceases  to  suggest  images  and 
scenes  that  are  gross  and  foul.  As  a  consequence,  all  the 
movements  of  thought  and  fancy  become  essentially  sensual- 
ized ;  and  the  man  himself,  in  impulses  and  associations,  is 
permanently  debased  in  the  world  of  imagery  which  so  largely 
makes  up  and  constitutes  his  inner  self.^ 

s  eciaiiim.         ^  ^^^'    "^^^  appetites  are  subject  to  the  general 
itation  to  the  law  of  habit ;  under  which,  repetition  gives  a  keener 
capacity  to  the  sensibility,  and  a  more  energetic  im- 
pulsiveness to  the  desires.      Under  the  operation  of  this  law 

1  ••  But  when  lust 

By  unchaste  looks,  loose  gestures,  and  foul  talk,  — 

But  most  by  lewd  and  lavish  act  of  sin, — 

Lets  in  defilement  to  the  inward  parts. 

The  soul  grows  clotted  by  contagion, 

Imbodies  and  imbrutes  till  she  quite  lose 

The  divine  property  of  her  first  being." 

Cbmu«,  463-489. 


§  167.]  THE  BODILY  LIFE.  329 

alone,  it  would  follow,  that  given  any  energy  or  direction  of  the 
will,  or  the  presence  of  any  permanent  volition,  the  repeated  in- 
dulgence of  the  obedient  sensibilities  must  augment  in  a  height- 
ened ratio  the  relation  of  the  tempting  to  the  resisting  motive, 
and  increases  the  improbability  of  any  change  (§  34).  In  the 
animal  passions,  this  ratio  of  increase  is  augmented  by  the 
pathological  fact  that  the  physical  or  physiological  basis  for 
the  gratification  of  any  impulse  is  diminished  in  its  capacity 
for  action,  while,  as  indulgence  is  repeated,  the  imagined 
gratification  serves  to  stimulate  the  unsatisfied  desire.  While 
it  is  true  generally,  that  novelty  gives  a  special  zest  to  gratifi- 
cation, it  is  eminently  true  of  the  animal  passions.  In  this  we 
find  another  indication  that  these  impulses  were  intended  for 
subjection,  and  never  for  supremacy,  whenever  a  conflict  arises 
between  them  and  man's  higher  nature. 

While  it  is  true  that  the  law  of  habit  holds  of  all  the  sensibili- 
ties, it  is  eminently  true  of  the  so-called  animal  propensities  in 
man.  If,  in  the  psychical,  the  rate  of  increase  is  arithmetical 
as  the  consequence  of  repetition,  in  the  animal  it  is  geometrical 
as  indulgence  is  repeated,  and  the  hoped-for  gratification  stimu- 
lates unsatisfied  desire.  Then,  too,  as  the  desire  is  stimulated, 
the  capacity  for  gratification  is  diminished  in  the  opposite  direc- 
tion ;  and  consequently  the  gulf  widens  more  and  more  between 
rapacious  passion  and  the  means  of  its  satisfaction. 

§  167.  A  theory  directly  the  opposite  of  this  is  held  more  or 
less  distinctly  by  not  a  few  men  of  culture  of  the 
present  time.     These  teach  that  animal  indulgences  dignity  and 
of   every  kind,  when  looked   upon   in  the  light  of  "s^^^  of  the 
science,  are  as  truly  elevated  as  any  other ;  and  that 
"the   rehabilitation   of  the   flesh"    in   its   original   rights,   as 
against  the  narrow  and  envious  teachings  of   priests  and   phi- 
losophers, is  one  of  the  solid  achievements  of  modern  science, 
and   one  of   the  flowery  garlands  of   the  aesthetic  philosophy 
of  life.     The  rough  common-sense  of  the  man  of  the  world, 
and  the  refined  taste  of  Christian  philosophy,  reject  with  dis- 


330  ELEMENTS  OF  MOBAL  SCIENCE.  [§  168. 

gust  such  a  theory  as  untrue  to  nature,  and  degrading  to 
humanity. 

It  would  seem  to  be  sufficient  to  reply  to  this  theory,  that 
duties  to  ourselves  respect  the  future  as  truly  as  they  concern 
the  present.  Questions  concerning  our  duties  are  not  entirely 
disposed  of  when  we  have  decided  that  a  feeling  or  an  act  is  for 
the  moment  innocent  or  even  wholesome  for  ourselves.  It  not 
infrequently  becomes  our  duty  to  consider  what  will  be  the 
future  effect  or  tendency  of  any  act  or  emotion,  if  we  yield  to 
present  solicitation.  This  holds  good,  in  a  degree,  of  every  act 
or  impulse,  but  especially  of  the  bodily  appetites,  whose  very 
nature  is  so  imperious,  that,  unless  they  are  constantly  restrained 
in  imagination  and  act,  they  tend  to  become  the  easy  and  the  un- 
disputed tyrants  of  the  man  who  asks  for  but  one  more  harmless 
indulgence.  From  being  gentle  and  plausible  tempters  to  this 
single  indulgence,  they  are  exalted  into  the  cruel  masters  of  the 
enslaved  will,  which  exact  an  endless  repetition  of  compliance ; 
the  will  being  none  the  less  enslaved  because  the  dominion  is 
felt  to  be  the  more  abject  by  the  repeated  humiliation  of  a 
ready  and  even  passionate  assent  every  time  that  the  tempta- 
tion re-appears.  That  this  is  the  certain  and  inevitable  oper- 
ation of  all  the  animal  desires,  is  early  made  apparent  to  the 
experience  of  the  most  thoughtless  and  headstrong.  It  may 
be  observed  in  infancy  and  childhood,  by  those  who  are  least 
instructed  and  most  feebly  disciplined.  The  fact  or  law  is 
made  apparent  to  every  one  who  feels  any  obligation  of  duty  in 
its  most  indefinite  and  feeblest  forms.  From  this  obvious  fact 
is  derived  the  acknowledged  duty,  in  all  our  actions  and  feel- 
ings, to  respect  the  law  of  habit ;  in  other  words,  to  own  it 
as  a  duty  to  ourselves,  in  every  form  of  activity,  to  regard  the 
reflex  influence  of  every  act,  be  it  thought  or  desire  or  purpose 
or  outward  deed,  upon  our  future  selves. 

§  168.  So  far  as  a  man  is  aware  of  the  relations  or  effects  of 
a  present  indulgence  or  act  with  respect  to  his  future,  so  far 
does  he  consent  to  its  operation  for  the  future,  and  include  it 


§  168.]  THE  BODILY  LIFE.  331 

and  consent  to  it  along  with  the  present.     Not  only  does  he 
take  upon  himself  all  the  moral  responsibility  of  his 
present  act,  but  of  what  is  morally  certain  in  the  man  is  re- 
future,  unless  some  important  chanoje  occurs  in  his  sponsible  for 

'  r-  o  ^jjg  future. 

underlying  character.  Every  present  indulgence, 
when  taken  with  this  known  risk  and  probability,  involves  the 
moral  acceptance  of  this  risk.  The  boy  or  man  with  a  growing 
appetite,  or  an  appetite  which  he  knows  is  likely  to  grow,  for 
liquor  or  impure  imaginings,  for  gambling  or  envy,  for  revenge 
or  petty  thieving,  for  discontented  repinings  or  impious  distrust, 
anticipates  and  consents  to  like  offences  in  the  future,  so  far  as 
these  are  involved  in  his  present  act.  In  this  way  each  separate 
act  becomes  emphatically  an  affirmation  of  the  character  as  a 
permanent  state  of  the  will,  which  in  its  turn  energizes  and 
confirms  the  character. 

While  this  is  pre-eminently  true  of  all  the  bodily  appetites, 
it  is  so  conspicuously  of  the  appetite  for  intoxicating  drinks  and 
the  opium-habit.  Indulgence  of  either,  except  under  the  rigid 
and  fixed  restraints  of  high  moral  purpose,  brings  with  itself,  to 
a  majority  of  men,  the  strong  probability  that  the  appetite  will 
sooner  or  later  gain  the  mastery,  and  that,  either  at  a  slow  or 
rapid  rate,  its  victim  will  become  the  bond-slave  of  a  passion 
that  will  muddle  his  brain,  weaken  his  judgment,  wreck  his 
affections,,  and  withdraw  him  from  the  confidence  of  his  fellow- 
men.  Whether  it  is  true  or  not  that  the  use  of  ardent  spirits 
as  a  constant  beverage  is  physiologically  injurious,  it  cannot  be 
doubted  that  this  use  is  morally  hazardous  to  the  great  mass 
of  men  ;  and,  for  this  reason,  no  man  is  justified  in  such  use 
who  does  not  make  out  for  himself  a  special  case  for  exemption. 
It  follows  that  every  man  owes  it  as  a  duty  to  himself  to  abstain 
from  such  use,  irrespective  of  any  obligation  of  example  or 
other  social  relations  to  his  fellow-men,  unless  he  can  show  a 
decisive  reason  to  the  contrary. 

What  is  true  of  the  appetite  for  intoxicating  drinks  is  true  of 
the  sexual  passion.     This  impulse  needs  special  control  for  the 


332  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL   SCIENCE.  [§  169. 

present  and  the  future,  with  respect  to  the  internal  and  external 
habits,  because  of  the  peculiar  prominence  which  the  imagina- 
tion has  in  its  temptings  to  evil,  and  the  facility  with  which 
indecent  literature  lends  itself  to  the  service  of  debauching 
the  imagination,  especially  of  those  youths  who  are  as  yet 
unaccustomed  to  its  suggestions  of  evil. 

These  considerations  explain  the  ethical  foundation  and  im- 
port of  the  petition,  "  Lead  us  not  into  temptation."  The 
prayer  is  itself  an  act  of  forecast,  which  seeks  protection 
against  future  moral  evil,  and  against  any  exposure  to  such 
evil  by  agencies  and  solicitations  which  shall  be  stronger  than 
the  unaided  moral  powers  or  purposes.  Every  man  who  honestly 
utters  this  prayer  will  certainly  allow  nothing,  by  his  present 
activity  or  indulgence,  which  he  knows  will  add  strength  to 
the  solicitations  of  future  evil. 

§  169.  The  social  aspects  of  the  appetites  cannot  be  over- 
^   ,  ,        ,    looked,  even  in  the  consideration  of  man's  duties  to 

Social  aspects 

of  the  appe-  himself.  As  has  already  been  explained,  his  nature 
as  a  social  being  enters  into  and  forms  a  part  of  his 
human  nature,  and  gives  a  special  force  to  the  duties  which  he 
owes  to  himself.  The  appetites  are  all  eminently  self-centred, 
and  are  necessarily  exclusive,  and,  in  a  certain  sense,  repellent 
of  the  claims  of  the  appetites  of  other  men.  If  undisciplined 
and  unrestrained,  they  easily  lead  into  open  disregard  of  their 
interests  and  claims,  if  not  into  open  assaults  upon  them,  in 
insulting  manners  or  violent  deeds.  Obtrusive  greediness  in 
eating  and  drinking  naturally  gives  offence,  even  when  there  is 
enough  for  all.  Any  bodily  pre-occupation,  whether  pleasurable 
or  painful,  much  more  in  forms  that  are  extreme,  —  as  of  heat 
and  cold,  starvation  and  thirst,  —  presents  the  strongest  im- 
pulses to  some  unhandsome  neglect  or  forgetfulness  of  our  fel- 
low-men. This  exclusive  and  self-centring  power  is  fearfully 
illustrated  in  conditions  of  man's  great  extremity,  as  in  ship- 
wreck, and  exposure  to  impending  death.  This  natural  tendency 
is  enormously  increased  wheu  an  appetite  is  voluntarily  accepted 


§§  170,  171.]  THE  BODILY  LIFE.  333 

as  the  master  and  tyrant  of  the  man.  Gluttony,  intemperance, 
and  licentiousness  are  notoriously  selfish  and  cruel  when  they 
become  acknowledged  and  absorbing  passions.  Let  them  en- 
counter a  rival  or  a  foe,  and  their  subject  and  victim  becomes 
not  only  a  brute  in  his  degradation,  but  a  brute  in  his  cruel  hate, 
if  disappointed  or  opposed  in  his  gratification.  No  fact  is  better 
attested  by  universal  and  obvious  experience,  than  that  the  ap- 
petites not  only  trample  into  the  mire  the  most  tender  of  natural 
affections,  but  that  they  inspire  man  with  fiendish  hate  towards 
those  who  would  reform  or  resist  his  brutish  impulses. 

§  170.  By  observations  of  this  sort,  made  quickly,  uniformly, 
and  early,  every  man  who  is  willing  to  learn  is  xhe  appetites 
taught  that  his  animal  impulses  are  made  to  be  made  to  be 
controlled.  Some,  if  not  all,  of  these  teachings  are 
enforced  by  that  natural  sense  of  shame  which  may  literally 
be  called  "  the  modesty  of  nature."  Not  a  few  brutes  possess 
a  kindred  sensibility  in  a  rudimentary  form.  In  man  it  pre- 
cedes and  enforces  the  teachings  and  experiences  of  nature 
and  society,  and  is  itself  re-enforced  and  sanctioned  by  these 
teachings.  Hence  modesty  becomes  an  ethical  duty,  a  law  and 
sanction  of  character  and  conduct,  of  actions  and  manners, 
pre-eminently  when  these  are  concerned  with  the  animal  appe- 
tites. To  cultivate  and  practise  modesty,  in  every  one  of  its 
forms,  is  a  constant  duty  to  ou*e's  self  as  a  habit  of  prime 
importance,  an  investiture  at  once  of  strength  and  beauty. 
Just  in  proportion  as  the  public  conscience  recognizes  and 
enforces  moderation  and  modesty,  the  individual  conscience 
responds  with  the  intellect  and  the  heart. 

§  171.  It  follows,  that  every  man  owes  it  as  a  duty  to  him- 
self, to  indulge  his  appetites  under  the  limits  and  j^j^^^^^^j  ^g. 
restraints  imposed  by  a  fundamental  regard  to  his  straints  and 
bodily  health  and  life,  and  stimulated  by  the  human- 
izing influence  of  those  nobler  affections  of  his  nature  which 
are  the  natural  accompaniments  of  bodily  indulgences,  and  at 
once  elevate  and  restrain  them.     Every  man   should  eat  and 


334  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL   SCIENCE.  [§  171. 

drink  like  a  man,  and  never  like  a  brute ;  neither  imprudently 
nor  greedily,  neither  selfishly  nor  immoderately.  When  he  eats 
and  drinks  with  his  fellow-men,  he  should  do  it  with  the  charity, 
modesty,  and  courtesy  which  recognize  them  as  men  and  fellow- 
men,  but  never  as  brutes.  In  this  way  the  appetites,  instead 
of  being  hinderances,  are  aids  to  our  higher  culture.  Instead  of 
finding  in  them  merely  animal  indulgences,  or  temptations  to 
immoderate  and  abusive  excesses,  we  may  find  in  them  an 
exaltation  and  refinement  of  the  spirit,  a  victory  and  self- 
restraint,  a  discipline  of  manners  and  taste,  and  an  enlarge- 
ment of  love  and  charity.  To  have  eaten  at  one's  table,  or 
partaken  of  one's  salt,  is,  with  many  tribes,  to  have  given  and 
received  a  pledge  of  confidence  and  friendship.  A  single  meal 
with  free  and  generous  hospitality  is  often  made  the  beginning 
of  an  intimate  companionship. 

It  should  be  remembered,  that  the  most  offensive  and  brutal 
perversion  of  the  appetites  conceivable  is  not  that  of  the  un- 
reasoning animal,  nor  of  the  half-animalized  man  who  gives 
himself  up  in  mere  stolidity  to  the  instincts  of  his  bodily  life ; 
but  that  of  the  ingenious  and  inventive  man  who  uses  the 
resources  of  his  ingenuity  to  enlarge  the  range,  to  disguise 
the  evil,  and  to  make  seductive  the  charms,  of  what  would  other- 
wise be  repellent  and  gross  and  offensive.  Not  a  few  go  far- 
ther, and  selfishly  and  fiendishly  use  the  affections  which  were 
designed  to  elevate  the  appetites,  as  the  means  of  murderous 
seduction,  and  a  palliation  for  their  own  selfish  and  beastly 
degradation.  They  may  even  employ  the  social  amenities 
which  were  designed  to  discipline  man  to  self-conquest  and  self- 
abnegation,  as  the  instruments  and  channels  for  the  most  fatal 
and  enduring  of  injuries.  They  may  misapply  the  resources  of 
art,  and  the  attractions  of  manners,  and  the  amenities  of  liter- 
ature, and  the  excitements  of  song,  to  palliate,  to  stimulate, 
and  to  conceal  the  grossness  and  cruelty  of  animal  indulgences. 
The  higher  the  culture,  the  more  various  the  resources,  and  the 
more  refined  the  tastes,  of  the  man  who  yields  himself  deliber- 


§171.]  THE  BODILY  LIFE.  335 

ately  or  habitually  to  intemperate  excess  or  sexual  vice,  the 
more  defiuite  is  his  own  sense  of  the  loss  of  self-control  and 
consequently  of  self-respect ;  and,  the  more  exasperated  is  his 
anger  against  his  fellow-men  who  reprove  or  repel  him,  the 
more  complete  is  his  devotion  to  the  appetite  for  which  he  has 
parted  with  so  much  that  he  may  well  desire  to  retain. 

Sexual  vice  takes  many  forms,  from  that  of   the  weakling 
youth   to  that  of   the  cultivated  and  accomplished 
seducer,  who  endeavors  to  reconcile  the  refinements  vice  and 
of  aesthetic  sensibility  with  a  devotion  to  lust,  to 
gallantry,  or  seduction.     Should  we  say  nothing  here  of   the 
murderous  quality  of   seduction  when   it   is  considered  as  an 
offence  against  a  confiding  victim,  we  should  only  emphasize 
the  quality  of  self-murder  which  belongs  to  it  as  a  sin  against 
one's  self.     However  difficult  it  may  be  to  explain  the  peculiar 
demoralizing  influences  which  attend  habitual  licentiousness,  it 
is  not  easy  to  deny  the  truth  of  the  lucid  and  emphatic  testi- 
mony of  Dr.  Paley  :  "However  it  be  accounted  for,  the  criminal 
commerce  of   the  sexes  corrupts  and  depraves  the  mind  and 
moral  character  more  than  any  single  species  of  vice  whatever  '* 
{Moral  and  Political  Philosophy,  book  iii.  part  iii.  chap.  ii.). 

The  testimony  of  Burns  is  no  less  true  because  it  is  eminently 
pathetic. 

"The  lowe  o'  weel-placed  love 
Luxuriantly  indulge  it, 
But  never  tempt  the  illicit  rove, 

Tho'  naething  should  divulge  it. 
I  waive  the  quantum  o'  the  sin, 

The  hazard  o'  concealing; 
But,  och!  it  hardens  a'  within, 
And  petrifies  the  feeling." 

Epistle  to  a  Young  Friend. 

Conviviality  as  a  comprehensive  term  has  its  good  and  bad 
moral  side.  Used  in  its  good  sense,  it  dignifies  and  tempers  the 
merely  animal  enjoyments  and  excitements  of  food  and  drink, 
and  employs  taste  and  beauty  in  the  decorations  and  service  of 


336  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL  SCIENCE.  .  [§  172. 

hospitality  at  family  meals  and  at  social  entertainments,  and 
tends  to  repress  animalism  by  means  of  social  and  aesthetic  ap- 
pliances. On  the  other  hand,  drinking  and  festive  songs  are 
often  expressly  designed  to  excuse  or  justify  the  excesses  which 
attend  many  social  indulgences.  Prurient  and  salacious  litera- 
ture, in  its  manifold  forms  of  double  entendre^  of  broad  and 
piquant  humor,  of  subtle  or  gross  allusions,  in  its  favorite  plots 
which  turn  upon  seduction  and  adultery,  furnishes  abundant 
opportunity  for  the  heightening  and  justification  of  unlawful 
passion,  and  the  corruption  of  the  individual  and  the  com- 
munity. The  duties  of  a  man  to  himself  in  these  particulars 
are  not  easily  separated  from  his  duties  to  others,  inasmuch 
as  the  former  re-act  upon  the  latter.  It  cannot  be  questioned, 
that  every  individual  does  something  in  giving  a  right  or  wrong 
direction  to  these  subtle  agencies.  Every  man  also  suffers  more 
or  less  in  his  own  moral  tastes  and  habits  from  those  tastes  and 
habits  which  he  helps  to  form,  or  does  not  seek  to  reform,  in 
the  community.  Whether  or  not  he  owes  no  duties  to  others  in 
a  social  way,  he  owes  something  to  himself  to  assert  his  own 
convictions,  as  well  as  to  correct  and  purify  the  atmosphere  of 
public  sentiment  and  manners  which  he  himself  must  breathe, 
whether  he  will  or  not. 

§  172.  The  questions  concerning  the  duties  of  individuals  in 
respect  to  the  appetites  have  always,  and  especially 
biiityfor  of  late,  been  complicated  by  the  consideration  of 
ot  ers.  ^j^^.^  responsibility  for  others,  which  has  been  made 

prominent  by  reason  of  the  earnest  movements  against  the 
vice  of  intemperance  in  the  use  of  alcoholic  liquors.  These 
movements  have  naturally  led  to  active  discussions,  in  which 
physiological  considerations  have  been  mingled  with  the  prin- 
ciples of  individual  liberty  and  social  duty ;  and  these,  again, 
with  inquiries  in  respect  to  legislative  duty  and  responsibility, 
and  all  for  the  determination  of  ethical  questions. 

One  of  these  questions  forces  itself  upon  our  attention  at 
this  stage  of  our  discussion.     The  objects  of  the  appetites  in- 


§172.]  THE  BODILY  LIFE.  837 

volved  are  threefold,  —  intoxicating,  stimulating,  and  narcotie. 
Pathologically  viewed,  they  afifect  the  soul  in  its  animal  sus- 
ceptibilities in  various  forms  and  degrees  of  excitement  and 
depression,  which  are  followed  by  a  great  variety  of  impulses 
and  desires,  some  of  which  are  degrading,  and  tend  directly  to 
vice  of  every  description. 

As  a  consequence,  it  is  contended  by  many,  that  every  solid 
and  liquid  which  is  not  nutrient  should  be  rejected  except  for 
medical  uses  ;  that  stimulants,  and  perhaps  narcotics,  should  be 
rejected  from  any  other  use,  and  should  be  guarded  and  for- 
bidden to  the  community  by  legislative  enactments.  We  do  not 
discuss  the  question  at  this  place,  of  the  morality  of  using  these 
liquors  on  grounds  of  public  safety  or  public  policy.  We  simply 
ask  whether  it  is  immoral  to  use  a  stimulant  or  a  narcotic  as 
such,  because  the  appetite  for  such  a  substance  is  not  natural, 
but  artificial ;  and  whether  this  is  further  corroborated  by  the 
circumstance,  that  the  object  of  it  is  a  stimulant  or  narcotic.  It 
is  enough  to  say  that  the  principle  proves  too  much ;  inasmuch 
as  it  would  forbid  the  use  of  tea  and  coffee,  which  seem  to  con- 
sist of  elements  that  stimulate  the  nerves,  as  well  as  nourish 
the  stomach.  To  this  it  would  be  replied,  that  they  are  at  least 
nutrient  in  part.  Some  would  respond  to  this  assertion,  that, 
in  the  opinion  of  some  physiologists,  this  is  true  of  alcohol. 
This  question  may  be  assumed  to  be  not  yet  determined. 

It  would  seem,  that  so  long  as  this  question  of  fact  is  not 
settled,  — i.e.,  so  long  as  the  evidence  on  either  side  is  not  ob- 
vious and  convincing  to  men  of  ordinary  observation  and  judg- 
ment,—  the  obligation  to  abstain,  under  all  circumstances,  from 
the  articles  of  food  and  drink  which  are  in  question,  cannot  be 
maintained.     However  tenable  may  be  the  reasons 
for  total  abstinence  from  all  liquors  which  intoxi-  with  respect 
cate,    on   grounds   of   personal   exposure   in   their  *®  intoxkat- 
habitual  use,  or  on  grounds  of  public  welfare,  the 
duty  cannot  at  present  be  enforced  on  the   ground   that  it  is 
morally  wrong  to  use  a  stimulant  as  a  beverage. 


338  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL  SCIENCE,     [§§  173,  174. 

§  173.  The  duties  which  respect  the  appetites  can^  us  over 
to  those  which  relate  to  the  health  and  life.     We 

Duties  which    ,  ,         , 

respect  the      ^^vc  already  seen  that  we  ought  to  regulate  the 

health  and  appetites  with  reference  to  their  effects  upon  both, 
life.  ^  ^  ^ 

This   implies,  that,  within   certain   limits,    we    are 

morally  responsible  for  our  health  and  life.  This  truth  is 
usually  recognized  without  dissent  as  an  axiom  in  morals.  The 
reasons  for  accepting  it  need,  however,  to  be  carefully  con- 
sidered, especially  in  view  of  the  peiplexities  and  conflicts 
which  attend  the  discussion  of  special  practical  problems. 

Why,  then,  ought  men  to  promote  their  health  and  prolong 
their  lives?  Is  it  simply  because  they  desire  both?  But  they 
do  not  always  desire  either;  at  least,  with  any  considerable 
energy.  Does  the  obligation  to  care  for  either  weaken  or  fail 
with  the  relaxation  and  extinction  of  these  impulses  ?  The  very 
utterance  of  these  questions  would  intimate,  that,  though  the 
desire  of  life  may  not  be  the  simple  and  sole  explanation  of 
the  duty,  it  may  have  much  to  do  with  its  existence  and  its 
enforcement. 

§  174.  We  find,  then,  the  desire  of  life  to  be  the  most 
tenacious   and  comprehensive  of   all  the   so-called 

Tenacity  and 

strength  of  mstmctivc  impulscs.  We  mean  the  desire  of  bodily 
the  desire  of  ^ell-being  and  life,  for  it  originally  takes  this  form 
and  no  other;  inasmuch  as  man  in  the  earlier 
stages  of  his  being  knows  no  form  of  existence  as  an  object 
of  knowledge  or  desire  other  than  those  which  are  dependent  on 
the  body.  Even  when  an  incorporeal  life  becomes  a  familiar 
object  of  his  faith  or  hope,  the  body  is  always  so  near  and  so 
vivid  as  to  fill  up  the  foreground  of  thought  and  feeling ;  and 
the  ties  which  bind  us  to  it  are  tenacious  beyond  any  com- 
parison with  others.  The  desire  to  be  healthy  and  strong,  and 
to  continue  to  live  on  our  bodily  life,  remains  with  almost 
unabated  freshness  and  vigor.  The  prolongation  of  life  is 
largely  placed  within  our  power,  and  in  a  sense  committed  to 
our  keeping.     We  know  that  if  we  choose  we  can  cut  it  short, 


§  175.]  THE  BODILY  LIFE.  339 

or  endanger  its  continuance.  Why  do  we  not  often  end  it, 
especially  under  impatience,  suffering,  or  disgust?  It  may  be 
that  we  never  really  desire  to  do  so,  even  when  we  half  persuade 
ourselves  that  we  do.  It  is  far  nearer  the  truth  to  say,  that 
we  do  not  feel  at  liberty  to  end  our  life,  even  should  we  desire 
it.  In  other  words,  we  read  in  the  prevailing  desire,  strong  and 
unconquerable  as  it  is,  the  expressed  command  of  reason  that 
we  should  struggle  and  strive  to  live  as  long  as  we  may.  We 
confidently  interpret  this  struggling  and  tenacious  impulse  to 
cling  to  life,  as  expressing  the  purpose  or  law  of  our  being, 
that  we  should  avoid  all  reckless  and  needless  exposure  to 
sickness  and  death.  We  also  regard  the  bodily  life  and  health 
as  a  trust  committed  to  our  care.  Both  elements  of  proof 
suppose  an  economy  of  nature,  including  living  beings  as 
mutually  related,  the  relations  of  which  may  not  only  be  dis- 
cerned by  man,  but  which  his  reason  is  compelled  to  interpret, 
finding  the  authority  of  law  in  the  purposes  of  nature,  and  the 
arrangements  to  meet  and  fulfil  these  conspicuous  ends.  If 
this  economy  of  nature  is  supplemented  by  a  thinking  and 
willing  person,  these  adaptations  express  the  law  which  his  will 
enforces.  Viewed  in  these  higher  relations,  the  care  of  our 
health  and  life  becomes  a  personal  trust  assigned  and  enforced 
by  the  Supreme. 

§  175.  In  point  of  fact,  the  true  value  of  human  life  and  the 
sacred   duty  of   respecting  it   has   never  prevailed 
where  theism  and  Christian  theism  has  not  been  a  i,uman  life 
living  faith.     The  obligation  to  conserve  one's  own   ""<'<^*" 

^  ^  theism. 

life  has  never  been  generally  and  earnestly  acknowl- 
edged, except  where  its  value  has  been  revealed  by  the  light 
reflected  upon  man's  interest  and  destiny,  from  the  supposed 
sympathy  and  care  of  the  Father  of  spirits. 

Among  the  brightest  and  strongest  of  the  ancients,  suicide 
was  not  only  tolerated,  but  it  was  considered  an  act  of  both 
heroism  and  humanity.  Thinking  men  asked.  Why  should  not 
a  man  be  brave  enough  to  terminate  his  own  life  when  it  had 


340  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL   SCIENCE.  [§  176. 

become  a  torment  and  a  burden  to  himself  ?  Why  not  go  out 
of  the  house  when  the  chimney  smokes?  Wliy,  also,  should  he 
not  be  considerate  of  the  comfort  of  his  friends  when  his  life 
had  become  a  burden  or  torment  to  them  as  well  as  to  himself? 
To  accept  this  conclusion,  and  to  act  out  this  faith,  was  deemed 
the  wisdom  of  the  profoundest  and  the  most  courageous  phi- 
losophy, and  sometimes  as  the  height  of  the  most  heroic  and 
disinterested  philanthropy. 

Contrariwise,  under  the  theistic  view,  the  act  of  suicide  is 
Criminality  prematurely  to  desert  the  post  of  duty,  and  to  be- 
of  suicide.  |^j.g^y  one's  trust.  It  is  to  contravene  the  will  of 
nature  and  the  God  of  nature,  by  a  self-willed  and  conceited 
judgment  of  our  own.  Christian  theism,  moreover,  inculcates 
the  endurance  of  suffering  as  a  discipline  of  patience  and  trust 
in  the  wisdom  and  will  of  Him  who  makes  a  life  of  profound 
suffering  a  necessary  preparation  for  a  better  life  of  confirmed 
perfection  and  unalloyed  blessedness.  To  the  argument,  that 
to  cut  short  one's  own  life,  especially  in  poverty,  helplessness, 
and  suffering,  may  give  relief  and  rest  to  others,  the  reply  is 
pertinent  and  decisive,  that  we  may  not  presume  to  judge  of 
the  healthful  discipline  which  others  may  require  in  their  sym- 
pathy and  toil  for  us. 

Apart  from  this  reference  to  the  economy  of  nature  and  the 
government  of  God,  it  is  not  easy  to  find  any  decisive  argu- 
ment against  the  rightfulness  of  suicide  in  cases  of  extremity. 
That  suicide  is  essentially  cowardly,  is  answered  by  the  counter 
assertion,  that  it  is  often  more  cowardly  to  avoid  it ;  that  it  is 
inhuman  to  others,  by  the  argument  that  to  refrain  from  it 
may  be  more  cruel ;  that  it  is  presumptuous  to  decide  such  a 
question  beyond  the  possibility  of  a  revisal,  by  the  reply  that 
to  refrain  is  to  decide,  and  that  such  questions  must,  in  the 
nature  of  the  case,  be  adjusted  by  the  weight  of  probabilities 
in  every  individual  case. 

§  176.  Imprudence  in  respect  to  the  healthy  and  recklessness 
in  exposure  to  danger,  are  morally  wrong,  because  foresight  in 


§  176.]  THE  BODILY  LIFE,     .  341 

respect  to  any  interest  or  trust  that  is  committed  to  our  care 
is  an  imperative  duty.  The  guilt  of  imprudent  neg-  ^^^^^^^^^^ 
ligence  in  such  cases  is  measured  by  the  importance  and  reckiess- 
of  the  interest  which  we  risk,  and  the  strength  of 
the  motives  which  we  overcome.  It  follows,  that  the  more 
clearly  and  fully  one  man,  or  many,  discern  the  conditions  and 
laws  of  health,  the  more  imperative  becomes  the  obligation  to 
regard  them.  The  more  generally  men  are  informed  concern- 
ing the  conditions  of  a  protracted  and  healthful  earthly  life,  the 
more  sa,cred  becomes  the  obligation  to  fulfil  these  conditions. 
The  sanitary  laws  and  conditions  which  respect  the  person, 
the  dwelling,  the  neighborhood,  the  village,  and  the  city,  are 
clothed  at  once  with  moral  authority,  so  soon  and  so  far  as  they 
are  discovered  and  established. 

It  should  be  remembered,  on  the  other  hand,  that  the  preser- 
vation and  prolongation  of  the  bodily  life  is  not  a 

^  ^  "^  Preservation 

supreme  end.  There  are  many  things  more  desir-  of  life  not  a 
able  than  the  continuance  of  one  or  many  lives.  *"P'®™®  ®"^' 
Fidelity  and  boldness  in  the  attestation  of  our  convictions,  the 
preservation  of  the  lives  of  others,  the  defence  of  personal 
purity  and  honor,  the  protection  of  the  helpless  and  the  endan- 
gered, the  defence  of  one's  home  and  country,  furnish  occasions 
when  the  risk  and  sacrifice  of  the  personal  life  are  not  only 
permitted,  but  enforced  by  the  sanction  of  conscience  and  of 
God.  Under  the  stress  of  immediate  danger  to  one's  friend 
or  neighbor,  or  under  the  inspiration  of  a  great  movement  for 
a  good  cause  of  religion  or  patriotism,  a  man  may  be  more 
than  justified  in  hazarding  and  sacrificing  his  health  or  his  life. 
It  is  not  easy  always,  perhaps  not  even  possible,  to  give  rules 
or  criteria  by  which  our  actions  in  extreme  cases  are  saved 
from  the  charge  of  reckless  exposure,  and  exalted  to  the  dignity 
of  heroic  virtue.  Nor  is  it  easy  to  draw  the  line  between  an 
example  of  prudence  and  foresight,  and  an  instance  of  reckless 
self-sacrifice.  Questions  of  duty  are  not  always  easily  brought 
under  any  definite  formula  amid  the  more  prosaic  scenes  of  life  ; 


842  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL   SCIENCE.  [§  176. 

much  less  when  the  circumstances  are  perplexing,  or  inevitable 
haste  and  excitement  preclude  the  possibility  of  deliberation. 
The  greatness  of  what  are  called  the  heroic  actions  of  life  is 
often  illustrated  as  much  by  the  sagacity  which  discerns  the 
necessity  of  an  occasion,  as  the  self-forgetfulness  which  meets 
it  promptly  and  bravely.  To  judge  with  coolness,  and  that 
discrimination  which  can  decide  wisely  when  it  is  necessary  to 
risk  life  and  health  and  fortune,  and  which  can  wisely  use  the 
means  which  are  requisite  for  success,  is  often  as  conspicuous 
an  indication  of  heroic  virtue  as  any  headlong  forwardness  to 
meet  a  risk  or  sacrifice.  It  is  idle  to  vex  ourselves  with  ques- 
tions of  conscience  as  to  what  we  may  find  it  necessary  to  decide 
concerning  our  duty  in  case  a  serious  crisis  should  break  upon 
us  which  might  require  some  extraordinary  energy  of  virtue. 
It  is  equally  idle  to  sit  in  judgment  upon  the  wisdom  or  folly 
of  those  sudden  resolves  of  other  men  which  have  seemed  to 
be  the  extremity  of  rashness.  Rules  and  parallels  fail  in  such 
trials.     Each  case  can  only  be  decided  by  itself. 

It  is  safe,  however,  to  say,  tliat  self-regarding  prudence  is 
not  always  the  supreme  duty.  The  conditions  of  health  and 
comfort  for  individuals  and  communities  are  now  so  generally 
understood,  and  so  rigidly  enforced  by  public  sentiment,  that 
there  is  some  danger  that  a  selfish  care  of  health  and  comfort 
should  take  the  place  of  the  heroism  of  self-sacrifice.  In  some 
circles  of  scientific  thought,  pity  is  openly  denounced  as  a  weak 
sentimentality,  and  brutal  expedients  for  the  summary  disposal 
of  the  suffering  classes  are  openly  recommended.  It  is  grateful 
to  observe,  on  the  other  hand,  that,  as  more  is  learned  of  the 
conditions  of  personal  and  public  health  by  the  light  of  sani- 
tary science,  more  generally  is  the  obligation  acknowledged  to 
care  and  sacrifice  for  both.  The  outbreak  of  every  local  pesti- 
lence not  only  awakens  an  instant  inquiry  in  respect  to  its 
causes,  but  it  summons  to  activity  a  band  of  self-sacrificing 
men  and  women  who  take  their  lives  in  their  hands  as  nurses 
and  helpers  to  the  sick  and  the  dying.     The  variety  and  per- 


§  177.]  TUE  BODILY  LIFE.  343 

fection  of  hospital  appliances  would  seem  to  indicate  that  the 
obligation  to  care  for  the  life  and  health  of  others  is  more 
and  more  cordially  assented  to.  There  are  also  necessary  and 
honorable  occupations,  the  animating  law  and  spirit  of  which 
involve  an  habitual  disregard  of  health  or  life  as  supreme,  and 
in  which  the  ordinary  respect  to  either  is  openly  set  aside  as 
dishonorable  and  immoral.  The  military  and  medical  pro- 
fessions, which,  in  a  certain  sense,  set  off  from  different  start- 
ing-points, and  move  towards  different  goals,  must  often 
involve  and  require  what  in  others  would  seem  to  be  a  criminal 
disregard  of  life.  The  paradox  is  easily  explained  from  a  high 
ethical  point  of  view,  that  the  countries  in  which  human  life  is 
most  sacredly  esteemed  and  most  sacredly  cherished,  because 
God  is  feared,  and  immortality  is  most  confidently  believed, 
are  the  countries  in  which  human  life  is  most  deliberately 
hazarded  and  most  heroically  sacrificed  for  the  cause  of 
humanity  and  of  God. 

§  177.  The  right  to  life  is  indeed  the  most  sacred  of  all 
rights,  and  in  a  sense  inalienable  (§  199),  even  by 
the  subject  of  it,  and  eminently  sacred  against  inva-  ti,e  rig^t 
sion  by  any  other  human   beinsr.     It  is  the  most  *<^  "f®  '» 

-^  -^  °  inalienable. 

sacred  of  all  rights,  because  it  is  the  supreme  con- 
dition of  all  human  enjoyment  and  activity.  If  life  is  not 
secured,  nothing  else  can  be  enjoyed  as  one's  own.  It  there- 
fore may  never  be  parted  with  through  caprice,  or  at  any  other 
call  than  the  call  of  duty.  It  may  be  forfeited  in  the  interests 
of  moral  order,  by  punishment  for  crime.  There  is,  moreover, 
no  such  intrinsic  sacredness  in  human  life  as  forbids  exposure 
or  sacrifice  in  a  good  cause,  when  there  is  suflacient  reason  for 
its  being  hazarded  or  given  up.  The  martyrs  of  learning,  of 
liberty,  and  of  religion,  would  all  protest  against  such  an  exag- 
gerated and  idolatrous  view  of  human  life,  in  one  united  cry 
from  beneath  the  altars  of  their  voluntary  self-devotion.  The 
cross,  the  sacred  symbol  of  earthly  sacrifice  for  the  highest 
interests  of  others,   utters  its  decisive   protest,   as  it  attests, 


844  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL   SCIENCE.  [§  177. 

*'  Greater  love  hath  no  man  than  this,  that  a  man  lay  down  his 
life  for  his  friends." 

And  yet,  for  all  this,  it  is  none  the  less  true,  but  the  more, 
that  the  romantic,  the  heedless,  the  reckless,  the  sentimental 
hazarding  of  life,  whether  at  the  sick-bed,  in  the  study,  in 
athletic  sports,  or  on  the  battle-field,  is  stenily  forbidden,  as 
alike  unfaithful  to  ourselves,  to  our  fellow-men,  and  to  God. 


§  178.]   DUTIES   WHICH  BESPECT  THE  INTELLECT.       345 


CHAPTER  IV. 

DUTIES  TO  OURSELVES  WHICH  RESPECT   THE   INTELLECT. 

§  178.  Every  man  is  morally  obliged  to  cultivate  and  im- 
prove his  intellect.  So  soon  as  he  awakes  to  con-  j^^^^^j^j 
scions  activity,  he  finds  himself  ignorant,  yet  capa-  impulses  to 
ble  and  desirous  of  knowledge.  Though  he  may 
be  conscious  of  partial  darkness,  he  is  awakened  and  stimulated 
by  tlie  dawning  light.  To  know  gives  him  pleasure,  and  the 
experience  of  this  pleasure  awakens  fresh  curiosity.  From 
the  lowest  form  of  bewildering  wonder  to  the  highest  forms  of 
scientific  insight  and  inventive  skill,  to  enjoy  this  pleasure  is 
not  merely  morally  lawful,  but,  so  far  as  it  consists  with  other 
enjoyments,  is  morally  obligatory.  It  is  the  duty  of  every  man 
to  secure  to  himself  these  higher  enjoyments  of  intellectual 
activity  and  acquisition,  and  to  sacrifice  to  them  inferior 
pleasures.  The  intellectual  life  is  superior,  at  least,  to  the 
animal  life ;  and  it  adds  a  peculiar  zest,  even  to  the  highest 
forms  of  emotional  and  moral  delight.  For  these  reasons,  if 
for  no  other,  man  owes  it  as  a  duty  to  use  his  intellect  in  the 
best  manner  and  for  the  best  results.  Intellectual  acquisitions 
and  powers  are  also  capable  of  augmentation  and  growth. 
Nothing  is  better  established  in  our  experience  and  observation, 
than  that  any  considerable  degree  of  intellectual  power  or  ac- 
quisition can  be  gained  by  discipline  and  effort,  and  by  these 
only.  Whether  the  gains  are  of  truths  or  facts,  or  whether 
they  consist  in  facility  of  any  kind,  they  come  of  training  only. 
Growth  in  intellect,  in  the   double   form   of  knowledge   and 


346  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL   SCIENCE.  [§  170. 

power,  is  as  natural,  and  almost  as  necessary,  as  the  existence 
or  activity  of  the  intellect.  Indeed,  activity  and  intellectual 
effort  are  invariably  followed  by  growth  ;  and,  with  the  use  of 
the  one,  there  come  the  conscious  possession  and  achievement 
of  the  other. 

§  179.  Moreover,  intellectual  activity  and  incidentally  intel- 
ActiTit  the  l^^^^^l  growth  are  the  indispensable  conditions  of 
condition  of  attaining  many  objects  or  ends  which  are  confessed 
^'^^^    '  to  be  desirable.     To  succeed  in  most  of  the  aims  of 

life,  man  must  have  knowledge  and  skill,  both  of  which  require 
guidance,  attention,  and  effort.  Whether  the  intellect  gains  in 
knowledge,  or  gains  in  power,  it  is  only  by  active  and  well- 
directed  labor. 

Knowledge  and  intellectual  power  are  also  the  conditions  of 
usefulness.  If  a  man  can  help  others  by  imparting  to  them 
facts  of  which  they  are  ignorant,  or  guidance  which  thgy  re- 
quire, he  must  thus  far  have  trained  his  own  intellect.  So  soon 
as  a  man  awakes  to  these  conditions  of  his  individual  and  social 
existence,  he  cannot  but  discern  and  respond  to  the  obligation 
to  inform  and  discipline  his  intellect  as  a  constant  and  impor- 
tant duty. 

Men  universally  enforce  upon  one  another  this  duty.  They 
Men  enforce  hold  each  Other  responsible  for  the  neglect  of  intel- 
thig  duty.  lectual  activity  and  culture.  They  require  of  men 
of  ordinary  intelligence  and  opportunities,  that  they  should 
learn  the  obvious  conditions  of  bodily  health  and  comfort,  the 
recognized  precautions  against  sickness  and  death,  as  also 
attention  to  decency  of  manners  and  speech.  For  gross  and 
wilful  ignorance  in  respect  to  these  points,  under  the  usual  con- 
ditions of  civilized  life,  men  hold  each  other  responsible.  So 
far  from  accepting  stolid  or  wilful  ignorance  as  an  excuse,  they 
treat  it  as  itself  criminal. 

The  individual  sometimes  goes  farther  than  society  in  recog- 
nizing the  duties  of  intellectual  activity  and  training.  Even  if 
society  does  not  openly  condemn  or  ostracize  a  man  who  is 


§  180.]  DUTIES    WHICH  BESPECT  THE  INTELLECT.       347 

thoughtless  m  his  speech  or  behavior,  he  sometimes  condemns 
himself  most  pitilessly  for  his  stupid  inattention,  or  his  long- 
indulged  indolence,  as  the  occasions  of  his  crimes  or  blunders. 
The  more  distinctly  he  reflects,  the  more  clearly  he  accepts  the 
general  principle,  that  every  man  is  morally  bound  to  use  and 
train  his  mind  so  that  he  may  acquaint  himself  with  those  con- 
ditions of  individual  and  social  welfare,  for  which  he  is  properly 
made  responsible. 

§  180.  Besides  the  sphere  in  life  which  may  be  said  to  be 
common  to  all  men,  and  for  which  men  are   held 

Each  Individ- 

responsible,  at  least  in  civilized  society,  almost  uaiiiasaspe- 
every  individual  finds  himself  in  some  special  posi-  "»•  sphere  of 
tion  of  activity,  which  is  more  or  less  clearly  de- 
fined, and  which  he  occupies  for  a  longer  or  shorter  period  of 
time.  This  sphere  is  to  every  man  a  limited  sphere,  even  when 
it  is  most  widened.  The  broadest  intellect,  and  the  most  vari- 
ously cultured,  is  still  circumscribed  in  its  range.  Whether  this 
sphere  is  characteristically  scientific  or  practical ;  whether  the 
individual  man  is  a  laborer  whose  range  of  special  knowledge 
or  activity  is  limited  to  the  pickaxe  or  the  spade,  or  a  scientist 
who  can  predict  the  place  and  movements  of  the  stars,  or 
record  the  successive  phases  of  the  universe,  —  each  man  must 
concern  himself  with  a  comparatively  limited  number  of  facts 
and  relations,  and  must  content  himself  with  mastering  these 
solely  by  intellectual  effort.  The  place  of  activity  which  every 
man  finds  or  makes  for  himself  in  the  social  economy  is  limited 
to  certain  facts  and  activities,  to  meet  which,  with  the  highest 
success,  is  his  foremost  duty.  He  cannot  do  this  unless  he 
masters  the  facts  and  trains  his  powers  to  the  habits  and  skill 
which  such  a  sphere  requires.  To  do  this  is  the  foremost  duty 
of  every  man.  Often  it  seems  to  be  his  one  comprehensive 
duty.  It  is  scarcely  an  exaggeration  to  say,  that  for  many 
men,  and  in  some  sense  for  all  men,  the  sum  and  substance  of 
their  duties  to  their  fellow-men  is  comprehended  in  the  precept, 
to  perform  faithfully  the  duties  of  their  special  calling  in  life. 


348  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL   SCIENCE.  [§  181. 

But  this  involves  the  duty  to  understand  the  facts  and  perfect 
the  habits  which  are  requisite  for  the  discharge  of  these  duties. 
To  do  any  work  well,  a  man  must  understand  his  work  and 
understand  himself.  Each  of  these  involves  intellectual  activity 
and  training. 

§  181.  For  all  these  reasons,  the  community  imposes  heavy 
responsibilities  on  a  man  who  professes  any  art  or 

The  comma-  -.-  i.ii.  .i  •.  ,.i 

nity  holds  a  profession  for  which  he  is  not  trained,  and  to  which 
man  to  his       jjg  j^g^g  ^q^  ffiven  Sufficient  attention,  or  for  which 

profession. 

perhaps  he  has  barely  sufficient  capacity  to  know 
whether  he  is  or  is  not  qualified  to  practise  it.  Whether  a  man 
proposes  to  sweep  the  streets,  or  cook  a  dinner,  or  build  a 
bridge,  or  direct  a  steam-engine,  or  sail  a  ship,  or  heal  the  sick, 
or  preach  the  gospel,  or  expound  a  science,  if  he  is  ignorant  of 
what  should  be  known  or  done  in  the  occupation  of  any  of  these 
positions,  and  does  not  know  how  to  do  it,  he  is  condemned  as 
a  deceiver  of  the  community,  even  if  in  some  sense  he  is  self- 
deceived.  He  is  held  at  the  courts  of  the  law  and  at  the  court 
of  public  opinion  to  be  responsible,  even  when  his  ignorance  is 
so  gross  as  almost  to  relieve  him  from  the  suspicion  of  moral 
responsibility.  In  some  of  the  arts  and  professions,  quacks 
and  pretenders  are  not  unfrequently  subjected  to  prosecu- 
tion and  punishment  for  malpractice.  The  only  limitation  to 
this  resort  to  the  juridical  law  for  the  protection  of  the  com- 
munity is  found  in  the  difficulty  of  conviction  by  any  tests 
which  the  courts  can  apply.  The  fact  that  the  law  holds  man 
accountable  for  culpable  ignorance,  whenever  he  is  convicted, 
is  the  only  point  which  is  of  any  ethical  importance. 

To  most  men,  as  we  have  said,  there  is  assigned  by  the  ne- 
cessities or  circumstances  of  their  condition  some  special  sphere 
of  activity  for  which  a  more  or  less  definite  training  is  required. 
The  duty  of  such  persons  is  obvious,  to  meet  these  demands 
by  training  themselves  to  intellectual  and  manual  skill.  The 
arrangement  is  beneficent  by  which,  in  civilized  communities, 
special  duties  are  assigned  to  particular  individuals,  involving  a 


§  182.]    DUTIES    WHICH  BESPECT  THE  INTELLECT.      349 

concentrated  and  continued  subjection  to  special  discipline.  By 
the  same  rule,  the  few  who  are  supposed  to  be  specially  favored 
in  being  exempt  from  this  necessity  or  obligation  should  supply 
themselves  with  its  substitute  in  some  special  form  of  activity 
selected  by  themselves.  Those  who  are  not  compelled  to  derive 
their  subsistence  from  any  of  the  arts  or  professions  should 
select  some  definite  occupation  for  which  their  tastes  or  judg- 
ments predispose  them,  in  order  that  they  may  gain  the  habits 
and  culture  which  a  profession  or  occupation  involves.  This 
duty  is  not  limited  to  one  of  the  sexes.  For  the  same  reason, 
it  is  often  for  the  interest,  and  often  becomes  the  duty,  of  those 
women  who  are  released  from  domestic  duties,  to  find  some 
constant  and  invigorating  occupation  of  art,  or  benevolence, 
or  study,  that  their  minds  may  be  brightened  and  stimulated 
by  a  course  of  progressive  activity  and  sustained  enthusiasm. 

While,  for  the  reasons  already  given,  we  give  prominence  to  the  duties 
which  each  man  owes  to  his  profession,  we  would  not  overlook  the  fact 
that  his  power  and  success,  within  his  calling,  are  often  effectually  pro- 
moted by  exercising  his  intellect  upon  subjects-matter  that  lie  without  its 
limits.  So  far  as  this  is  true,  so  far  does  the  profession  itself  gain  by  now 
and  then  being  forgotten  ;  and  one's  special  power  is  invigorated  and 
freshened  by  those  facts  and  relations  which  are  remote  from  an  ordinary, 
and  too  often  a  mechanical,  routine  of  activity.  Narrowness  of  intellect 
is  often  as  unfriendly  to  the  best  intellectual  achievement  and  success 
within  a  special  sphere  as  is  a  want  of  concentration.  But  while  a  liberal 
and  generous  culture  of  the  intellect  is  always  a  duty,  so  far  as  it  is  possi- 
ble, it  should  always  be  remembered  that  one's  first  duty  to  his  fellow-men 
is  his  duty  to  be  master  to  the  utmost  of  the  knowledge  and  skill  which 
his  business  or  calling  requires.  The  great  majority  of  the  failures  in 
success  and  usefulness  in  life  are  to  be  ascribed  to  slackness  and  indolence 
in  preparation  for  the  callings  which  men  profess.  Slackness  and  indo- 
lence are  therefore  intellectual  defects,  which  rightly  estimated  are  always 
sins,  and  often  become  crimes. 

§  182.  A  special  class  of  intellectual  duties  are  those  which  concern  the 

ethical  convictions  and  principles.    We  distinguish  between 

Intellectnal      the  convictions  and  principles  thus:  The  convictions  are  the 

..      "  intellectual  beliefs,  whether  or  not  they  can  be  verbally 

ethical  truth,    formulated  or  logically  proved ;  the  principles  are  the  same 

as  stated  and  defended.    The  special  obligation  to  employ  the 

intellect  in  ethical  uses  is  derived  from  the  importance,  especially  to  a 


350  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL   SCIENCE.  [§  182. 

man  of  general  intellectual  culture,  that  his  ethical  views  should  be  made 
the  subject  of  thought  and  reasoning  as  truly  and  as  thoroughly  as  his  con- 
victions in  respect  to  any  other  subject-matter.  Ethical  truth  is  also  con- 
fessedly the  most  important  of  all  truth.  Clear  and  convincing  as  may  be 
the  light  which  illumines  it,  the  light  may  be  intercepted  and  weakened  by 
withdrawing  the  attention,  or  indolently  or  passively  accepting  a  specious 
argument  in  its  place.  The  man  of  common-sense  who  takes  his  opinions 
upon  trust,  without  attempting  to  analyze  the  statements,  or  scrutinize 
the  arguments,  may  perhaps,  with  comparative  safety,  deal  with  ethical 
truth  as  he  deals  with  his  other  beliefs.  But  the  reasoner  or  logician,  the 
scientist  and  the  philosopher,  who  uses  the  power  of  a  trained  and  cultured 
intellect  upon  other  subject-matter,  and  does  not  employ  it  upon  the  evi- 
dence for  his  faith  in  conscience  and  the  moral  law,  may  find  himself  taken 
at  disadvantage  when  he  attempts  to  dispense  with  the  reasonings  which  are 
required  in  the  statement  and  defence  of  the  law  of  duty,  including  ita  re- 
ligious sanctions.  Hence  the  importance,  not  to  say  the  necessity  and  the 
commanding  duty,  that  every  man  should  employ  his  intellect  upon  ethical 
truth  as  an  object  of  supreme  interest,  and  train  and  discipline  his  intellect 
Bo  that  it  may  justify  and  enforce  his  ethical  convictions. 


§  183.]  DUTIES  WHICH  BELATE  TO   THE  FEELINGS.    351 


CHAPTER  V. 

DUTIES  TO  OURSELVES  WHICH  RELATE  TO  THE  FEELINGS 
AND   THE   HABITS. 

§  183.  The  feelings  or  emotions  may  be  treated  as  simply 
inner  experiences,  beginning  and  ending  with  our-  g^bjective 
selves   alone,  or   as   manifested   and   expressed   in  effects  of  the 

foGlin&TS 

word  and  act.  The  former,  again,  may  be  conceived 
as  leaving  a  permanent  impress  on  the  soul  itself,  or  as  leaving 
no  tracfe  upon  our  inner  being.  Strictly  interpreted,  no  emo- 
tion —  certainly  no  voluntary  emotion  —  can  be  supposed  to  be 
purely  transient  and  ineffective.  Every  inner  activity,  though 
manifested  by  neither  word  nor  act,  may  be  supposed  lo  tend 
to  be  more  or  less  permanent,  or  at  least  to  contribute  towards 
a  tendency  to  return  for  good  or  evil,  and  thus  to  reach  forward 
towards  some  future  volition.  Even  though  this  were  not  the 
case,  the  regulation  of  the  feelings  would  be  a  duty  which  we 
should  owe  to  ourselves,  did  our  feelings  concern  or  affect  no 
one  besides.  The  better  or  higher  affections  should  invariably 
exclude  the  lower,  whether  they  do  or  do  not  affect  the  future. 

The  opportunity  for  this  class  of  duties  is  far  wider  than  is 
commonly  supposed,  and  their  ethical  importance  is  far  more 
serious  and  important.  Many  of  the  most  significant  of  our 
indulged  emotions,  so  far  as  our  character  and  well-being  are 
concerned,  are  never  expressed  in  word  or  deed.  They  may 
never  be  felt  as  a  force  in  the  physical  or  social  economy,  and 
yet  in  respect  to  character  and  responsibility  their  significance 


352  ELEMENTS   OF  MORAL   SCIENCE.  [§  184. 

may  be  transcendent.  For  this  reason  they  come  directly  under 
the  law  of  duty.  The  precept,  and  the  reason  for  it,  are  summed 
up  in  the  words,  ''  Keep  thy  heart  with  all  diligence,  for  out  of 
it  are  the  issues  of  life/' 

§  184.  The  rule  is  twofold:  Give  room  and  play  to  the  best 
emotions,  whether  natural  or  moral,  because  of  their 

General  rule 

intrinsic  worth.  Do  the  same  more  emphatically  in  respect  to 
because,  whether  good  or  evil,  they  gather  strength  *^««"<»"on8. 
for  future  return  by  voluntary  indulgence.  A  man  owes  it  to 
his  present  self,  to  give  room  and  play  to- his  best  affections 
when  he  is  shut  up  to  the  solitary  indulgence  of  feelings  of 
any  kind.  He  owes  the  same  to  his  future  self,  as  subject  to 
the  law  of  habit,  and  as  certain  to  grow  weaker  or  stronger  in 
the  desires  and  impulses  which  constitute  and  control  his  moral 
life.  This  law  of  habit  holds  of  single  emotions  and  desires 
so  far  as  any  activity  gains  strength  and  force  by  repetition ; 
and  also  of  the  combination  of  any  two  in  a  joint  experience, 
so  far  as  this  becomes  the  ground  of  the  spontaneous  and  forci- 
ble recall  of  either  at  the  suggestion  of  the  other.  The  duty 
of  prudence,  or  the  obligation  to  regard  one's  future  self,  is 
emphatically  enforced  with  respect  to  the  regulation  of  the  feel- 
ings, pre-eminently  those  impulses  which  by  indulgence  ripen 
into  tyrannical  habits.  How  compactly  and  inextricably  the 
web  of  associated  feelings  and  desires  may  be  woven,  and  with 
what  energy  they  bind  the  strongest  wills,  is  known  to  multi- 
tudes by  their  happy  and  unhappy  experiences.  Few  crimes 
have  been  committed  in  outward  act  which  had  not  previously 
been  consented  to  in  inward  imagination  or  by  sinful  desire. 
The  thief,  the  murderer,  the  adulterer,  the  liar,  ordinarily  has 
often  committed  the  offence  in  thought  which  he  subsequently 
enacts  in  word  or  deed  ;  or,  if  he  does  not  beforehand  give  a 
formal  consent  to  the  foul  deed,  he  gives  headway  and  impulse 
to  the  desires  and  passions  which  at  last  gather  strength  enough 
to  break  through  the  strongest  barriers,  and  wliat  was  matured 
as  the  inward  will  breaks  forth  as  an  outward  act. 


§  185.]  DUTIES  WHICH  RELATE  TO   THE  FEELINGS.     35^ 

§  185.  The  energy  of  the  emotions  and  desires,  of  the  long- 
ings and  repulsions,  of  the  loves  and  hatreds,  of  the  importance 
envies  and  generosities,  of  the  trusts  and  revenges,   of  t*»e  emo- 

111.       tions  that 

that  have  never  been  expressed  in  word  or  deed,  is  are  not 
known  only  by  those  who  have  had  experience  of  expressed, 
them.  It  is  but  the  sober  truth  to  say,  that  this  energy  has 
often,  by  reason  of  the  absence  of  restraint  and  reproof,  sur- 
passed that  of  any  emotions  which  have  been  expressed  in 
word  or  deed.  For  these  indulgences,  time  and  opportunity  are 
always  ready,  and  secrecy  may  always  be  complete.  Correction 
or  displeasure  from  those  who  are  most  feared  and  respected  is 
withdrawn.  The  imagination  may  riot  in  the  images  and 
fancies,  the  remembrances  and  hopes,  and  even  the  falsehoods 
and  dreams,  which  often  stimulate  the  passions  with  greater 
energy  than  the  scenes  of  real  life.  The  feelings  aroused  by 
the  fancy  or  memory  may  ripen  into  those  inner  habits  which 
largely  constitute  or  determine  character. 

It  follows,  that  neglect  or  watchfulness  may  be  exercised  in 
the  voluntary  indulgence  or  repression  of  vicious  desires,  or  the 
fostering  of  emotions  which  are  elevated  and  noble.     Nothing 
but  the  habitual  indulgence  of  hidden  emotions  and  vicious  de- 
sires can  explain  many  sudden  outbreaks  of  crime  which  seem 
so  inconsistent  with  the   tenor  of   the  previous  outward  life. 
Very  frequently  they  are  confessed  or  discovered  to  be  but  the 
final   yielding  or  breaking-away  of   external  barriers  before  a 
swelling  tide  of  passion  or  falsehood  which  had  been  accumu- 
lated by  the  secret  indulgences  of  years.     George  Eliot  writes 
thus  in  "Romola:"   "Tito  was  experiencing  that  inexorable 
law  of  human  souls,  that  we  prepare  ourselves  for  sudden  deeds 
by  that  reiterated  choice  of  good  or  evil  which  determines  char- 
acter."    While  it  is  true,  on  the  one  hand,  that  the 
full  expression  of  our  feelings  in  outward  actions,   jn^^*"^^ 
and,  so  to  speak,  their  consummation  by  words  or  habits  of 
deeds,  intensifies  their  energy  ;  it  should  be  remem- 
bered, on  the  other,  that  the  best  and  worst  emotions  may  be 


354  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL   SCIENCE.  [§186. 

indulged  in  perfect  concealment,  and  be  repeated  a  thousand 
times,  when  there  is  not  a  single  opportunity  for  speech  or 
action.  In  such  cases,  the  restraint  from  the  anticipated  dis- 
pleasure or  opposition  or  reproof  of  our  fellow- men  may  be 
wholly  withdrawn,  and  nothing  hinders  or  checks  the  emotion 
save  inward  self-control  under  the  law  of  duty  or  the  fear  of 
God.  The  frequency  of  opportunity,  the  concealment,  t]ig 
absence  of  restraint,  all  combine  to  give  to  the  habits  of  feeling 
which  are  formed  in  secret  an  immense  importance  in  the  for- 
mation of  character,  and  the  practice  of  self-culture  by  which 
character  is  achieved. 

§  186.  On  the  other  hand,  the  act  of   cherishing  pure  and 

unselfish  emotions  by  inner  habits  goes  far  to 
tion  to  the      Strengthen  the  character  in  every  thing  that  is  good 

and  noble.  The  crises  of  great  temptations,  the 
inspiration  of  a  noble  opportunity,  rarely  meet  us ;  and  the 
manner  in  which  each  is  met  when  it  presents  itself  very  often 
depends  on  the  inner  associations  which  have  been  previously 
woven  from  the  finest  threads  of  thought  and  feeling,  such  as 
only  the  fantasy  can  spin.  The  great  battles  of  life  and 
character  follow  the  fortunes  of  the  manifold  little  conflicts  of 
temper  and  trial  which  constitute  the  inner  history  of  every 
living  being. 

It  should  be  remembered,  however,  that,  whether  inwardly  or 
^   „  outwardly,  we  cultivate  and   train  the  feelings  by 

Feelings  •"  »        J 

cultivated  by  means  of  the  objects  which  excite  them.  We  can- 
le  r  o  jec  s.  ^^^  ^^^j  y^^  wishing,  or  even  by  willing  to  feel, 
though  we  may  wish  ever  so  ardently  and  will  ever  so  strongly. 
To  feel  in  any  form  or  direction,  we  must  give  our  attention  to 
the  objects  which  excite  feeling,  whether  these  objects  are  per- 
sons or  things ;  whether  they  are  scenes  in  nature,  products  of 
art,  colors  or  sounds  or  forms,  noble  or  hateful  actions,  char- 
acters or  sentiments,  words  or  deeds ;  whether  fancies  and 
purposes,  or  living  men  and  actual  deeds.  These  objects  we 
must  not  only  attend  to,  but  retain  and  respond  to,  judge  of, 


§  187.]     DUTIES  WHICH  BEL  ATE   TO   THE  HABITS.        355 

approve  or  condemn,  and  then   by  inward  volition  accept  or 
reject. 

§  187.  "We  have  already  noticed  the  relation  of  habit  to  the 
appetites  and  the  bodily  life.      But  there   are  also  Habits  ©f 
habits  which  are  purely  psychical.,  and  pertain  to  the  certain 
so-called  desires,  as  of  property,  honor,  esteem,  etc. 

The  first  which  we  name  is  the  passion  for  gambling  in  any  of 
its  forms.     This  passion  is  in  many  respects  unlike 

,        ,      ,.,  .  ^  .  Gamftlingr. 

the  bodily  appetites.  It  assumes  many  forms,  as 
betting  on  cards,  the  speed  of  horses,  the  strength  of  men,  the 
issue  of  athletic  contests,  the  fitfulness  of  stocks,  or  the  results 
of  an  election.  It  is  unlike  a  bodily  appetite  in  not  depending 
on  the  psycho-physical  in  man  ;  being  founded  not  on  an  appe- 
tite, but  chiefly  on  the  desire  of  property  or  pecuniary  gain  or 
some  other  desire  technically  so  called.  We  say  chiefly,  for  the 
mere  desire  to  win  as  a  feat  of  forecast  contributes  somewhat 
to  the  excitement  of  the  contest.  But,  though  unlike  a  bodily 
impulse  in  its  basis  or  germinating  nucleus,  it  is  like  it  in  its 
capacity  for  its  tenacious  hold  on  the  feelings  and  its  rapidly 
accumulating  strength.  It  owes  both  of  these  elements  of  tena- 
city and  consequent  danger  to  its  capacity  to  occupy  and  interest 
the  imagination,  and  to  excite  the  passions  of  hope  and  daring 
and  self-confidence,  by  mimic  contests  of  the  fancy,  and  by 
the  striking  contrasts  between  its  exciting  experiences  and  the 
sober  facts  and  occupations  of  pains-taking  labor  and  self -rely- 
ing industry.  The  man  who  gives  himself  to  occupations  of  this 
sort  as  an  occasional  indulgence  is  in  imminent  danger  of  in- 
dulging impulses  which  he  will  not  be  able,  because  he  will  not 
desire,  to  relinquish.  The  excitement  of  imagined  success  as 
truly  disturbs  the  imagination  as  a  physical  disturbance  disorders 
the  brain.  Cool  heads  are  nearly  as  rare  under  the  one  excite- 
ment as  under  the  other.  The  rapid  suggestion  of  unfounded 
hopes  and  fears,  and  the  exclusion  of  the  consideration  of  the 
sober  truth,  are  as  really  unfavorable  to  clear  judgment  and  wise 


356  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL   SCIENCE.  [§  188. 

action  as  is  the  frightful  din  of  disturbing  sounds  or  the  bewil- 
dering glare  of  ten  thousand  colored  lights.  From  this  very 
bewilderment  of  uncertainty,  the  mind  strives  to  free  itself  by 
more  and  more  energetic,  and  it  may  be  desperate,  throws  and 
ventures,  till  ''  the  play  is  out,"  and  the  sequel  is  any  thing  but 
a  play.  The  glitter  and  glare  are  over ;  the  capacity  for  excite- 
ment is  exhausted  after  a  brief  season  perhaps,  or  at  most  after 
a  few  years  ;  when  the  victim  of  the  demoniac  passion  finds 
himself  either  ruined  in  fortune,  or,  in  the  rarest  of  instances, 
retires  to  an  uneventful,  because  an  uninteresting,  life,  in  which 
prudence  or  necessity  forbids  him  to  enjoy  his  accustomed 
excitements  except  on  the  smallest  and  meanest  scale.  The 
reformed  gambler  is  as  rare  a  phenomenon  as  the  reformed 
drunkard,  and  for  this  reason  the  insidious  beginnings  of  gam- 
bling should  be  avoided  as  truly  as  the  habits  which  ripen  into" 
Gambling  in  inebriety.  The  reckless  and  unprincipled  risks  as- 
bnsiness.  sumed  in  what  is  called  legitimate  business  partake 
more  or  less  of  the  nature  of  gambling,  and  are  acknowledged 
to  be  fraught  with  evil  to  the  individual  and  the  community. 
It  is  not  so  often  noticed  that  they  are  also  morally  injurious 
and  degrading  to  the  man  who  yields  to  them,  inasmuch  as  they 
involve  whatever  is  morally  evil  in  the  demoniac  passion.  The 
desire  for  wealth  is  not  wrong ;  the  accumulation  of  wealth  by 
lawful  efforts,  not  only  of  labor  but  of  forecast  and  skill,  is  not 
only  not  a  sin,  but  is  often  a  duty  and  a  virtue.  But  the  habit 
of  gaming  degrades  a  man  into  the  abject  slave  of  his  passion- 
ate wishes  and  romantic  fancies,  and  condemns  him  to  live  in 
the  unreal  world  of  excited  visions,  which  he  continually  per- 
suades himself  to  be  solid  facts,  and  is  continually  forced  to 
find  are  deceitful  dreams.  The  habits  which  lead  to  this 
wretched  life  of  illusions  are  insidiously  formed,  and  for  this 
reason  their  beginnings  should  be .  scrupulously  shunned  by 
Speculation  every  man  who  makes  a  conscience  of  any  duty, 
defined.  §  jgg.   What    is    Called    speculation^    whether   in 

stocks,  or  grain,  or  provisions,  or  any  other  article  of  invest- 


§  188.]     DUTIES  WHICH  RELATE  TO   THE  HABITS.        357 

ment,  use,  or  trade,  involves  the  evils  of  gambling,  when  no 
delivery  is  proposed  of  the  articles  which  are  said  to  be  bought 
or  sold,  and  the  bidding  or  guessing  or  betting  respects  only 
the  market-price  at  some  future  day.  To  buy  any  thing  in 
order  to  sell  at  a  future  day,  or  to  promise  to  buy  at  a  future 
day,  is  a  legitimate  act  of  hazard  and  forecast,  provided  the 
goods  are  paid  for  by  the  capital  or  the  credit  of  the  buyer  or 
seller,  and  are  actually  delivered.  But  to  promise  to  buy  or  sell, 
without  the  sobering  and  steadying  process  of  paying  on  the 
spot  by  cash  or  note,  diminishes  the  responsibility  of  the  dealer 
in  just  the  proportion  in  which  the  cost  of  an  actual  purchase 
and  delivery  differs  from  the  amount  which  is  pledged  ' '  to  cover 
one's  differences.'*  It  is  not  wrong  to  use  sagacity  in  antici- 
pating what  the  state  of  the  market  will  be  at  a  future  day,  in 
respect  to  any  article  whatever,  or  to  buy  or  sell  accordingly 
what  you  may  have  in  hand,  or  may  be  certain  you  can  buy ; 
but  simply  to  make  a  prediction,  and  to  pledge,  it  may  be,  all 
your  capital  or  credit  in  ten  or  fifteen  per  cent  of  an  estimated 
future  market-price,  tempts  men  to  irresponsible  Ventures,  with- 
out those  sobering  restraints  of  reality  which  the  responsibilities 
of  actual  payment  and  a  bona-Jide  purchase  alone  can  impose. 
It  involves  all  the  elements  of  imaginative  excitement  and 
irresponsibility  which  make  gambling  so  dangerous  when  it 
becomes  an  occupation  and  a  passion. 

Speculation  is  ordinarily,  and  perhaps  always,  far  less  dan- 
gerous and  desperate  as  a  habit  than  technical  gam- 
bling ;  because  it  is  connected  with  many  legitimate   gerous  than 
transactions  for  delivery  and  investment,  and  also  sam^Jiins 

proper. 

because  it  is  conducted  by  not  a  few  men  of  large 
capital,  and  under  rules  which  are  in  the  interests  of  fair  dealing, 
actual  risks  of  foresight  and  knowledge,  and  prompt  settlements. 
It  is  also  managed  i»  open  day,  and  in  the  presence  of  a  crowd 
of  disinterested  spectators  who  would  neither  ' '  break  a  bank  ' ' 
nor  "  cheat  at  cards."  And  yet,  with  many  an  individual,  the 
occupation  degenerates  into  what  is  nothing  better  than  gam- 


358  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL   SCIENCE.  [§  189. 

bling.  Sometimes,  after  a  series  of  unsuccessful  operations, 
the  transition  is  very  rapid  into  a  desperate  and  incurable  haliit 
of  tricks  and  effrontery,  often  involving  a  cruel  indifference  to 
the  interests  of  others,  and  an  easy  morality  of  deceit.  The 
excitements  of  such  a  life  not  infrequently  leave  behind  them 
a  miserable  residuum  of  vacant  horror  and  misanthropic  regret 
to  those  who  have  been  tempted  from  the  occupations  of  legiti- 
mate trade,  and  have  thus  made  sure  a  gloomy  close  to  an 
imbittered  life. 

§  189.  The  same  objections  hold  good  of  ventures  in  lotteries 
Ventures  in  ^^  whatever  description  ;  the  evils  of  which  have 
lotteries.  been  so  generally  recognized,  that,  in  most  of  the 
States  of  our  Union,  they  are  forbidden  by  law,  and  dealing  in 
lottery- tickets  and  ventures  is  severely  punished.  A  striking 
change  in  public  opinion  in  respect  to  the  morality  of  licensing 
lotteries,  and  dealing  in  lottery-shares,  has  been  effected  within 
two  generations.  This  change  is  made  conspicuous  by  the 
adoption  of  the  opinion,  with  many  conscientious  people,  that 
all  appeals  to  chance,  or  any  use  of  the  lot  to  decide  any  matter, 
are  morally  wrong. 

Not  a  few  such  persons  are  greatly  disturbed  at  the  use  of 
Raffling  lotteries^  or  raffling^  in  benevolent  or  religious  fairs, 

at  fairs.  for  the  reason  that  it  is  of  the  nature  of  gambling, 

and  gives  a  religious  or  ethical  sanction  to  fascinations  that 
are  wholly  evil.  It  may  be  and  doubtless  is  true,  that  such 
practices  foster  tastes  that  are  frivolous,  and  possibly  are  worae ; 
but  it  seems  idle  to  contend  that  all  appeals  to  the  lot  are 
immoral,  or  that  the  distributing  of  an  expensive  gift  by  the 
purchase  of  shares  need  offend  the  conscience.  Let  the  follow- 
ing be  supposed :  A  benevolent  person  proposes  to  give,  for  a 
benevolent  use,  —  as  for  a  hospital  or  a  church,  —  a  valuable 
painting,  or  piece  of  furniture.  It  will  not  command  in  the 
market  a  ready  sale.  The  owner  offers  it  for  the  price  of  thirty 
tickets,  each  of  which  is  within  the  means  of  many  persons  who 
would  be  willing  to  give  the  cost  of  a  ticket  to  the  good  cause, 


§  190.]     DUTIES  WHICH  RELATE  TO   THE  HABITS.        359 

and  are  not  unwilling  to  enjoy  the  anticipation  of  possibly 
drawing  the  prize.  Were  this  system  to  be  introduced  into  the 
economy  of  daily  life ;  were  raffling  to  become  frequent,  and 
were  it  known  to  be  attended  by  the  disastrous  consequences  of 
gambling,  —  the  duty  to  avoid  the  act  because  of  its  tendencies 
towards  an  easy  and  dangerous  habit  would  be  obvious  and 
unquestioned.  But  when  no  such  danger  exists,  to  insist  that 
an  act  is  wrong  because  of  its  possible  affinities  with  a  habit 
to  which  neither  the  individual  nor  the  community  is  immedi- 
ately exposed,  is  to  fall  into  the  weakness,  and  not  infrequently 
into  the  narrowness,  of  Pharisaism,  which  attaches  greater 
importance  to  the  appearance  than  to  the  fact  of  evil.  It  may 
still  be  a  question,  how  far,  in  such  cases,  we  ought  to  con- 
sider what  purport  to  be  the  weak  consciences  of  others. 

§  190.  Of  habits  in  general,  as  related  to  the  feelings,  we 
may  also  say,  that  a  servile  and  unmanly  fear  of 
performing  an  act  of  trivial  significance  lest  it  shall  related  to 
be  matured  and  hardened  into  a  habit,  or  lest  it  t^«^««""^s. 
should  weaken  the  force  of  a  habit  already  formed,  is  to  be 
avoided  by  every  one  who  would  use  wisely  this  most  important 
agency  in  the  formation  and  confirmation  of  character.  Strong 
as  is  the  force  of  habit,  and  important  as  is  the  necessity  that 
we  should  be  constantly  alive  to  its  power  for  good  and  evil,  it 
is  possible  to  become  its  slave,  and,  in  so  doing,  to  fail  of  the 
best  uses  to  which  it  can  be  applied.  To  be  afraid  to  deviate 
from  an  action  when  duty  and  affection  both  summon  us  to 
make  an  exception,  lest  a  desirable  or  persistent  habit  should 
be  interrupted,  is  to  set  up  a  mechanical  rule  in  place  of  a 
living  principle.  It  is  to  ,sliow  an  unmanly  distrust  of  our- 
selves and  the  resources  of  our  own  moral  life,  and  to  lose 
sight  of  the  most  important  conditions  of  the  highest  form  of 
moral  life,  and  the  living  spring  of  a  self-relying  moral  charac- 
ter. The  spirit  of  the  strongest  and  most  trustworthy  servant 
of  duty  is  a  spirit  of  freedom  from  every  description  of  bondage 
except  the  willing  bondage  of  love,  which  forgets  itself  in  its 


360  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL   SCIENCE.     [§§  192,  192. 

quick  response  to  any  call  of  duty,  to  our  fellow-men  more 
readily  than  to  ourselves. 

§  191.  Self-inspection  for  the  purpose  of  revising  and  judg- 
ing of  our  emotions,  whether  by  an  intellectual, 
tion",  wheT  social,  aesthetic,  or  moral  standard,  hinders  culture 
useful,  and  so  far  as  the  attention  is  withdrawn  from  the  objects 
which  excite  feeling.  When  it  occupies  the  ener- 
gies to  the  exclusion  of  the  objects  which  should  call  them 
forth,  it  produces  a  deadlock  in  the  soul  which  is  often  fatal  to 
healthy  activity  and  actual  progress.  Whenever,  in  the  glow  of 
feeling  or  under  the  impulse  of  desire,  the  soul,  being  filled  in 
the  mean  time  with  the  object  that  sways  its  emotions,  is  diverted 
by  the  question  whether  its  feeling  is  right  in  quality  or  ener- 
getic in  degree,  a  new  object  is  interposed  which  introduces  a 
new  feeling,  whether  of  pleasure  or  pain,  of  hope  or  fear ;  and 
if  it  does  nothing  more  or  worse,  it  at  least  interrupts  the 
activity  of  the  soul,  and  breaks  the  force  of  a  germinant  habit, 
simply  by  interfering  with  the  spontaneity  of  nature. 

Introverted  and  self-suspecting  natures  suffer  immensely  from 
arrested  or  misdirected  development,  by  such  unnatural  pro- 
cesses as  these.  Especially  do  sensitive  and  morbidly  conscien- 
tious persons,  whose  standard  of  excellence  is  high,  and  who 
apply  this  standard  so  often,  and  with  such  painful  anxiety  or 
unnatural  rigor,  as  to  give  no  opportunity  for  the  development 
or  training  of  the  feelings  under  the  natural  conditions  of 
strength  and  growth. 

§  192.  Habits  such  as  these  lead  to  asceticism  of  the  emo- 
,     ^,  ,  tions ;  which  may  be  defined  as  a  morbid  or  arti- 

of  the  ficial  method  of  self-culture,  which  especially  exer- 

ngs.  ^.^^^  ^.^^  feelings  simply  for  the  sake  of  making 
them  stronger  or  more  obedient,  especially  by  mechanical  and 
even  painful  manifestations  or  repressions.  Asceticism  seeks 
to  weaken  a  too  strong  desire  by  first  exciting  and  then  denying 
and  disappointing  it,  instead  of  bringing  in  one  that  is  higher  or 
nobler.     It  tempts  to  ambition  and  lust,  to  pride  and  envy,  that 


§  192.]     DUTIES  WHICH  BELATE  TO   THE  HABITS.        361 

it  may  furnish  an  occasion  for  mortifying  and  crucifying  these 
emotions  ;  instead  of  inciting  and  strengthening  self-sacrifice 
and  charity  by  the  motives  which  would  fan  these  impulses  into 
a  flame.  It  studies  artificial  methods  of  arousing  right  feel- 
ings, and  repressing  wrong  ones ;  instead  of  seeking  out  those 
objects  and  scenes  and  opportunities  which  would  stimulate  and 
satisfy  and  mature  the  better  impulses,  and  exclude  and  repress 
those  that  are  inferior.  It  rushes  upon  severe  and  painful  trials, 
that  it  may  work  out  some  heroic  achievement,  even  if  the  trial 
proves  stronger  than  it  can  bear ;  and  forgets  the  spirit  of  the 
petition,  Lead  us  not  into  temptation.  It  is  manifest  in  aesthet- 
ics, in  manners,  and  in  morals,  and  often  degenerates  into  a 
fanatical  and  factitious  heroism.  As  such  it  is  characterized 
by  the  common  feature  of  seeking  culture  by  sundry  artificial 
experiments  and  methods,  in  place  of  the  ordinances  and 
methods  of  nature,  and  the  relationships  and  duties  of  human 
life. 

Sentimentalists  of  all  sorts  are  a  species  of  ascetics,  whether  they  ex- 
pend their  energies  of  feeling  upon  imagined  objects,  or  train 
themselves  to  unnatural  intensities  of  emotion  for  the  luxury    Sentimental- 

ists  A  SUOCIGS 

of  woe  or  pity  or  grief,  of  love  or  hatred.  The  artificial  .  !. 
character  of  modern  social  culture,  the  affectations  of  modern 
literature,  the  intensities  of  modern  fiction  and  poetry,  tend  to  train  ima- 
ginative persons  to  'dccept  artificial  and  unnatural  standards  of  ideal  per- 
fection, which  can  never  be  realized,  and  which  consequently  become  a 
torment  to  the  weak  and  morbid  souls  which  aspire  after  what  the  nature 
of  man  and  the  conditions  of  his  earthly  existence  can  never  give.  Hence 
perpetual  disappointment,  weariness  of  life,  disgust  with  mankind,  ground- 
less self-reproaches,  settled  melancholy,  and  not  infrequently  the  insanity 
of  suicide,  or  perhaps  a  cynical  and  hateful  pessimism,  —  an  artificial  dis- 
ease which  seems  to  have  been  generated  wholly  from  modern  culture 
and  literary  tendencies,  and  to  have  been  subsequently  formulated  into 
a  philosophy  of  the  universe  and  of  human  life. 


362  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL  SCIENCE,  [§  193. 


CHAPTER   VI. 

DUTIES  OF  MAN  TO  HIMSELF,  WHICH  RESPECT  HIS  WANTS, 
HIS  RIGHTS,  AND  HIS  MORAL  CLAIMS. 

§  193.  Each  individual  man,  by  the  nature  of  his  own  indi- 
viduality, has  separate  wants  of  body  and  spirit,  to 
has  individ-  the  supply  of  which  he  is  impelled  by  original  im- 
uai  wants.  p^jges  of  instinct  and  rational  desire.  For  this 
supply  is  dependent  in  part  upon  himself,  and  in  part  upon 
his  fellow-men.  In  order  to  avail  himself  of  either  of  these 
sources  of  good,  he  must  employ  his  own  activities.  The  pos- 
sibility of  supplying  his  separate  wants  in  consistency  with  a 
benevolent  regard  to  others  is  indicated  by  the  arrangements 
of  nature,  and  may  be  assumed  as  an  axiom  in  morals.  It  is 
also  an  axiom,  that  it  is  salutary  for  himself  to  supply  his  indi- 
vidual wants,  whether  in  separate  or  joint  action,  by  means  of 
personal  industry,  foresight,  and  skill.  To  burden  our  fellow- 
men  with  the  responsibility  of  supplying  those  wants  which  we 
might  meet  by  ourselves,  is  not  only  a  selfish  wrong  to  them, 
but  is  an  offence  against  our  own  well-being. 

The  infant  and  the  simple-minded  help  themselves  to  food  and  shelter 

-,         ^  and  warmth,  very  ranch  as  does  the  animal,  that  is,  without 

Men  natnr-  '        '' 

ally  supply        either  reflection  or  forecast.    As  their  knowledge  of  means 

them,  and  is  developed  and  hecomes  more  complicated,  and  their  con- 
aid  one  ception  of  ends  hecomes  more  distinct  and  vivid,  as  they 
another.  forecast  the  possible  supply  of  similar  wants  in  the  future, 
they  are  impelled  to  provide  against  them  by  ampler  and  more  varied 
provisions  and  efforts.  But,  inasmuch  as  during  infancy  and  early  child- 
hood others  more  or  less  abundantly  supply  their  present  anil  future  needs, 
they  are  tempted  selfishly  to  rely  on  others  for  the  continuance  of  such 


§  193.]       WANTS,   RIGHTS,   AND  MORAL   CLAIMS.  363 

service.  The  conflict  of  impulses,  in  this  as  in  other  cases,  raises  the  ques- 
tion of  duty,  whether  and  how  far  the  individual  is  morally  bound  to 
depend  upon  himself.  This  question,  like  most  others,  is  determined  by  the 
Intentions  of  nature,  which  are  partly  manifested  by  certain  original  de- 
sires, and  partly  by  certain  universal  institutions  or  common  relations  of 
human  society. 

The  wants  of  men  include  all  those  conditions  or  means  on 
which  their  physical,  intellectual,  social,  and  moral  Meaning  of 
welfare  depends,  and  which,  in  a  sense,  may  be  ^^*'^*s* 
said  to  be  essential  to  man's  well-being.  These  must  vary  with 
the  peculiarities  and  conditions  of  each  individual,  with  his 
individual  habits,  his  culture,  and  his  social  position.  The 
conditions  of  a  single  and  satisfactory  physical  existence  are 
few,  and  are  more  or  less  readily  attained  under  favorable 
social  surroundings.  We  cannot  overlook  the  fact,  however, 
that  in  consequence  of  social  inequalities,  defective  education, 
bad  government,  and  bad  religions,  it  is  often  not  easy  for 
millions  of  the  depressed  classes  to  supply  themselves  even 
with  daily  bread.  Whatever  other  duties  may  be  obligatory, 
under  these  circumstances,  it  cannot  be  questioned  that  every 
man,  in  whatever  condition  he  may  find  himself,  is  morally 
bound  to  use  all  the  industry  and  foresight  which  he  can  employ 
for  the  supply  of  immediate  and  pressing  wants  like  these. 

One  of  the  first  lessons  which  nature  teaches  man  is,  that  he  can  neither 
live  nor  thrive  in  any  particular,  without  personal  effort  of 
body  and  mind;  that,  if  he  neglects  himself  altogether,  he  will    '^^^^  supply- 
starve  and  die;  and,  similarly,  that  if  he  does  not  care  for     fJ   ♦     d 
those  higher  wants  which  he  discerns  however  darkly,  he    gkiu. 
must  suffer.    If  he  allows  the  possession  and  impulses  of  any 
natural  capacity  to  interpret  to  him  his  duty,*he  will  feel  and  acknowledge 
the  obligation  to  labor  and  think,  and  provide  for  himself.    If  he  does  not 
discern  and  assent  to  this  obligation  by  his  independent  reflections,  he  will 
ordinarily  learn  it  from  certain  sharp  enforcements  from  his  fellow-men, 
which  will  compel  his  attention,  and  to  which  his  aroused  moral  judgment 
will  confidently  respond. 

The  supply  of  these  wants  involves  labor  of  body  and  mind, 
according  to  the  nature  of   the  good  which  is  concerned.     It 


364  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL  SCIENCE.  [§  194. 

involves  foresight  founded  on  an  experience  which  may  rise  to 
acute  and  prophetic  sagacity.  It  implies  skill  which  is  trained 
by  both  failures  and  successes.  Hence  labor,  sagacity,  and 
skill  become  duties  which  are  more  or  less  imperative  according 
to  the  nature  of  the  results  which  depend  on  their  exercise,  and 
the  capacity  of  the  individual  to  learn  from  experience. 

To  refuse  to  supply  our  own  wants,  is  also  to  wrong  our 
fellow-men  by  selfishly  imposing  on  them  the  labors  and  sacri- 
fices which  we  might  accept  for  ourselves.  It  is  also  to  wrong 
ourselves  by  yielding  to  solicitations  to  indolence,  carelessness, 
and  cowardice.  No  man  can  rightfully  rob  himself  of  the 
advantages  which  attend  and  follow  self-reliance,  forecast,  and 
labor,  or  shun  the  responsibilities  which  are  involved  in  caring 
for  one's  self. 

The  duty  of  self-reliance  supposes  health  of  body,  and  force  of  mind,  and 
more  or  fewer  favoring  social  conditions.  So  far  as  these  are  absent,  a 
person  is  exempt  from  the  otherwise  constant  and  inexorable  duty  of  help- 
ing one's  self.  When  these  fail,  the  duty  of  self-help  takes  another  form, 
and  becomes  self-control,  patience,  and  contentment.  The  impulse  or 
principle  which  prompts  to  self-dependence  with  labor  and  forecast,  so 
long  as  labor  and  forecast  are  possible,  then  takes  the  form  of  using  the 
resources  which  still  remain  in  inward  activity, -cheerful  thoughts,  a  hope- 
ful spirit,  and  a  contented  mind.  The  self-relying  man  in  health  who  is 
such  from  a  sense  of  duty,  often  learns  to  possess  his  soul  in  exemplary 
patience  when  he  becomes  dependent  and  helpless. 

§  194.  The  supply  of  many  of  the  wants  of  men  implies  the 
existence  of  property.     Property  implies  social  ex- 
property,  and  istence  in  an  organized   and   usually  in  a  compli- 
the  duty  of     cated  form.     It  supposes  that  the  means  or  sources 

acquiring  it.  > 

of  supply  for  our  human  wants  are  defined  and 
fixed  by  permanent  criteria  and  social  conventions.  Of  the 
duties  of  men  to  recognize  the  right  of  property  in  others,  and 
to  respect  the  institution  of  property  as  permanent  and  sacred, 
we  shall  treat  under  another  title  (§  220).  At  present  we  have 
to  do  with  the  duty  which  men  owe  to  themselves  to  acquire  and 
possess  property  as  a  means  of  supplying  their  wants. 


§  195.]       WANTS,  RIGHTS,  AND  MORAL  CLAIMS.  865 

There  is  a  special  reason  for  asserting  this  duty,  in  the  more  or  less 
extensive  prevalence  of  the  doctrine,  that,  though  it  may  be 
morally  right  for  a  man  to  possess  and  acquire  property,  yet  . 

it  is  not  a  man's  duty  to  do  so;  or,  at  least,  that  the  duty  is  Question, 
exceptional,  and  rests  only  upon  a  few  whose  circumstances 
make  the  obligation  manifest.  The  question  consequently  becomes  inter- 
esting and  important,  Is  it  a  duty  for  men  in  ordinary  circumstances  to 
spend  less  than  their  income  ?  To  this  question,  it  would  seem,  there  can 
be  but  one  answer.  If  it  is  a  duty  to  use  prudence  and  forecast  from  one 
day  or  one  month  to  another,  it  is  a  duty,  so  far  as  it  is  possible  or  consist- 
ent with  other  obligations,  to  provide  against  disability  or  illness  on  the 
part  of  one's  self  or  one's  dependents.  The  possibility  of  doing  this  en- 
forces the  duty.  The  importance  of  so  doing  is  enforced  by  the  experience 
of  privation  and  dependence  by  others  who  suffer  for  lack  of  industry  or 
foresight. 


§  195.  A  special  exception  from  this  obligation  is  supposed 
by  many  to  be  not  only  excused,  but  enforced,  in  the 
case  of  those  who  are  expressly  devoted  to  religious  classes  of  men 
or  educational  or  philanthropic  services.     Such  per-  ^"pp^*^^*^  *<* 

^  i-  ^  be  exempted 

sons,  it  is  urged,  are  under  special  obligations  to  give  from  this 
evidence  of  their  disinterestedness,  and  in  this  way  °  ^* 
to  gain  the  special  confidence  of  their  fellow-men,  by  the  formal 
abnegation  of  property.  No  exception  is  here  taken  to  the 
morality  of  any  voluntary  vows  of  poverty,  or  other  forms  of 
self-abnegation  by  which  men  and  women  cut  themselves  off 
from  the  supply  of  many  of  the  wants  which  ordinary  morality 
not  only  allows,  but  sanctions.  We  concede  that  such  vows 
may  be  not  only  lawful,  but  are  in  certain  cases  highly  praise- 
worthy, and  indicate  superior  disinterestedness  and  an  unselfish 
devotion.  Our  inquiries  are  limited  to  those  who  assume  the 
ordinary  social  obligations,  and  yet  regard  themselves  as  ex- 
cused ^by  their  profession  or  calling  from  the  duty  of  that  self- 
reliance  for  themselves  and  dependents  in  the  future,  which  a 
wise  prudence  would  inculcate. 

To  all  general  rules  of  external  conduct,  there  are  many 
individual  exceptions  such  as  justify  themselves,  and  also  sup- 
port the  principles  of  the  rule. 


366  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL  SCIENCE.  [§  190. 

There  are,  doubtless,  many  cases  in  which  devotion  to  a  great  and 
worthy  object  of  science,  invention,  philanthropy,  or  religion,  justifies  an 
elevated  and  heroic  insensibility  to  the  obligation  to  provide  against  future 
want.  The  heroes  and  martyrs  of  science  and  art  liave  found  their  justifi- 
cation in  the  splendid  and  useful  services  which  their  discoveries  and  in- 
ventions have  wrought  for  their  fellow-men  at  the  cost  of  such  voluntary 
self-abnegation.  But  it  should  not  be  forgotten,  that  self-reliance  and  self- 
respect  are  also  sentiments  which  are  of  inestimable  value,  and  that  these 
are  favored  by  pecuniary  independence,  and  often  require  it  when  it  can 
be  achieved  by  industry  and  forecast.  Such  sentiments  are  often  conspicu- 
ously illustrated,  indeed,  in  men  and  women  who  are  oppressed  by  poverty, 
to  whom  poverty  has  come  in  spite  of  frugality  and  self-denial;  but  they 
are  not  so  obvious  in  the  case  of  those  who  are  reckless  of  the  future,  and 
contemptuously  disown  the  obligation  to  accumulate  by  small  savings  from 
an  income  which  makes  such  savings  possible.  This  is  especially  true  in  a 
young,  as  contrasted  with  an  old,  country;  a  country  in  which  progress 
and  hope  give  tone  to  the  community,  in  which  fortunes  are  sometimes 
rapidly  made,  and  pecuniary  disasters  are  soon  forgotten  or  replaced.  Cer- 
tain classes  of  men  are  especially  exposed  to  this  failure  of  duty.  Skilled 
mechanics,  clerks,  teachers,  and  professional  men  of  all  classes,  are  tempted 
by  their  manifold  tastes  and  aspirations  to  disregard  those  higher  obliga- 
tions of  independence  and  self-respect  for  themselves  and  their  families 
which  enforce  the  duties  of  economy  and  thrift  in  acquiring  and  securing 
a  property  of  one's  own.  Hence  it  may  be  safely  inculcated  as  a  serious 
duty,  that  every  man  should  possess  a  home  and  estate  of  his  own,  how- 
ever small  and  humble  these  may  be. 

§  196.  It  is  thought  by  many,  that  the  teachings  of  the  New 
Testament  and  the  spirit  of  the  Christian  ethics  are 

Supposed  „  .       ,,  ,  .  -  .  , 

teachings        unfriendly  to  the  possession  of  property,  and  are 
of  the  New      especially   inconsistent   with    the    accumulation   of 

Testament.  ^  -^ 

large  estates.  Some  Christian  preachers  and  mor- 
alists inculcate  doctrines  of  this  sort,  and  hold  up  the  examples 
of  those  who  impart  as  fast  as  they  acquire,  as  more  truly 
Christian  than  those  who  become  or  remain  very  rich.  Many 
pointed  and  emphatic  teachings  of  the  New  Testament  in  re- 
spect to  the  comparative  worthlessness  of  riches,  and  the  su- 
preme obligation  to  abandon  them  at  the  call  of  duty,  are 
interpreted  as  incompatible  with  the  acquisition  or  retention  of 
great  wealth.  The  sudden  and  uncompromising  demands  now 
and  then  made  by  Christ  in  his  lifetime  upon  this  and  that  pro- 


§  197.]       WANTS,  BIGHTS,  AND  MOBAL   CLAIMS.  367 

fessed  disciple,  to  abandon  or  sell  his  fortune,  are  supposed  to 
be  of  universal  and  literal  obligation,  and  to  furnish  the  ideal  or 
type  of  Christian  duty  in  its  highest  form. 

It  hardly  need  be  repeated,  that  these  declarations  and  com- 
mands should  be  interpreted  like  the  other  teachings  of  the  New 
Testament  (§  136)  ;  viz.,  as  the  assertions  of  general  principles 
which  respect  the  purposes  only,  rather  than  as  universal  pre- 
cepts which  are  to  be  applied  to  the  conduct.  The  supremacy 
and  the  energy  of  the  purpose  are,  in  this  case,  insisted  on  with 
uncompromising  severity,  and  are  exemplified  by  its  unsparing 
application  in  the  forms  of  external  action.  The  extremest 
suppositions  are  made  of  the  acts  and  sacrifices  which  the  pre- 
cepts of  duty  may  involve.  On  the  other  hand,  the  institutions 
and  relationships  of  human  society  are  as  distinctly  recognized 
in  the  Christian  morality,  and  the  duties  which  these  imply  and 
enforce  are  solemnly  enjoined.  The  cardinal  virtue  of  right- 
eousness or  justice  is  enforced  most  emphatically,  and  the  eth- 
ical authority  of  property  is  thereby  uniformly  sanctioned  and 
enforced. 

§  197.  The  duty  to  possess  and  acquire  property  implies  the 
right  to  property.     This  introduces  the  subject  of 

.  ,         .  ;  ,      ,        ,      .  ,  .   ,  The  right  to 

rigJits  m  general,  and  the  duties  which  every  man  property, 
owes  to  himself  with  respect  to  his  separate  rights  lights  in 
as  an  individual.     The  duty  to  recognize  and  con- 
cede the  rights  of  others,  as  also  the  relation  of  rights  to  duties, 
falls  under  another  category,  and  will  be  considered  in  another 
place  (§  214).     We   assume   that   there   are  other  conditions 
for  individual  welfare  which  hold  a  place  similar  to  property 
with  respect  to  man's  well-being ;  that  each  man  must  enjoy 
these  conditions  for  himself,  and  feel  himself  secure  in  them, 
in  order  to  his  highest  good,  —  in  which  are  included   social 
enjoyment  and  comfort,  the  prolongation  of  life,  with  exemp- 
tion from  annoyance  and  injury  on  the  part  of  others.    Of  these 
essential  conditions  to  human  welfare,  the  secure  possession 
and  enjoyment  of  property- are  one  example.     Assuming  that 


368  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL  SCIENCE.  [§  198. 

there  are  such  rights,  we  limit  ourselves  for  the  present  to  the 
condition  of  the  duty  which  every  man  owes  to  himself  to  assert, 
enforce,  and  defend  his  individual  rights. 

If  our  conception  of  a  right  is  correct,  it  follows  that  every 
man  owes  the  duty  to  himself,  in  ordinary  circum- 

General  duty  "^  -^ 

to  assert  and  stances,  to  assert  and  defend  his  rights,  pre-emi- 
rfhte  *"'  nently  those  which  are  natural  and  inalienable.  If 
a  man  is  morally  bound  to  choose  in  purpose  and 
to  realize  by  act  his  highest  good,  and  if  there  are  external 
goods  which  are  essential  to  this  end,  he  is  morally  bound  to 
make  these  his  own,  and  to  secure  them  permanently  to  him- 
self. The  proposition  is  self-evident,  because  it  is  identical  and 
axiomatic.  This  rule,  it  will  be  observed,  however,  does  not 
specify  the  means  or  methods  by  which  man  may  define  or 
assert  these  rights. 

In  every  organized  society,  special  methods  are  devised  and 
provided,  by  which  these  rights  can  be  defended.  Governments 
exist  very  largely  —  in  the  view  of  many,  they  exist  solely  — 
for  the  purpose  of  rendering  this  service.  Two  cases  are  sup- 
posable,  which  may  arise  in  the  application  of  this  rule.  TJie 
first  is,  when  the  government  is  able  and  willing  to  defend  these 
rights;  the  second,  when  the  government  is  unable  or  unwilling 
to  render  its  service  or  aid. 

§  198.  In  the  first  case,  it  is  the  duty  of  every  individual,  by 

the  aid  and  through  the  agency  of  the  government, 

the  govern-     to  assert  and  defend  his  rights  ;  for  the  reason  that 

"'*"x.*'».i  security  in  these  fundamental  conditions  of  well- 
practicable.  '' 

being  is  a  necessity  to  every  man  which  he  is  bound 
to  assure  for  himself.  If  the  injury  is  trifling,  the  good  man 
may  forgive  or  overlook  it ;  but  if  it  is  serious  and  repeated,  no 
man  can  be  true  to  his  duty  to  himself  who  does  not  secure 
himself  against  injury  and  wrong  by  personal  self-protection 
or  legal  precautions  and  redress.  Assaults  upon  the  person, 
attempts  against  the  life,  theft  and  injury  of  one's  property, 
should  be  prosecuted  or  punished  by  the  law  ;  and  the  man  who 


§  198.]       WAJSTTS,   EIGHTS,   AND  MOBAL   CLAIMS.  369 

suffers  should  avail  himself  of  the  law,  for  the  security  and 
redress  which  the  law  proposes  to  give.  The  same  may  be  true 
of  the  invasion  of  other  rights  than  these  ;  but  the  obligation 
is  not  so  imperative  as  in  respect  to  the  most  of  these  prime 
conditions  of  comfort  and  safety.  A  man  may  not  necessarily 
fail  in  his  duty  to  himself,  who  does  not  enforce  his  rights  of 
inferior  import ;  but  the  man  cannot  ordinarily  be  true  to  his 
own  interests,  nor  to  those  of  his  fellow-men,  who  does  not  avail 
himself  of  every  legitimate  method  to  punish  any  gross  and 
palpable  invasion  of  his  fundamental  rights ;  to  say  nothing  of 
his  obligation  indirectly  thereby  to  defend  those  of  the  com- 
munity. 

There  are  not  a  few  who  adopt  the  opposite  extreme ;  who,  in  the  case 
of  the  invasion  of  their  so-called  natural  rights  of  person,    d    *  •      „f 
property,  and  life,  assume  the  responsibility  of  repelling  and    self-defence 
punishing  the  invader  without  the  instrumentality  of  the    sometimes 
law,  onU'he  ground  that  all  invasions  of  rights  of  this  sort    P'^cssed  to 
should  personally  he  repelled  or  punished.    The  fallacy  of 
this  reasoning,  if  it  be  reasoning  which  they  use,  is  obvious.    Law  is  en- 
acted and  enforced  for  the  very  purpose  of  taking  the  place  of  personal 
self-defence,  with  its  uncertainty,  its  haste,  its  passion,  and  its  failures  in 
equity.    The  law  usually  provides  for  any  of  those  cases  of  extreme  neces- 
sity, which  require  an  interposition  more  prompt  than  its  own.    It  permits 
the  defender  of  his  life,  his  person,  and  his  property,  to  take  the  function 
of  prevention,  and  even  of  punishment,  into  his  own  hands;  while  at 
the  same  time  it  forbids  and  punishes  any  violence  that  sets  aside  its 
own  agency  and  its  own  processes  when  these  can  be  employed.    No  man 
can  successfully  contend  that  it  is  a  duty  which  he  owes  to  himself,  to 
usurp  the  functions  of  the  magistrate,  in  ordinary  cases.    No  logic  except 
that  of  pride  and  passion,  disguised  as  self-respect  and  self-assertion,  can 
be  used  in  its  defence.    Duelling  and  lynch-law  rest  on  a  common  error, 
and  are  akin  in  a  common  fellowship  of  crime. 

The  second  case  supposed  is  that  in  which  the  government 

is  unable  or  unwilling  to  protect  or  defend  even  one's 

1-1  -r  1  ii      •     T    •  1      I  .  Suppose  the 

natural  rights.     In  such  a  case  the  mdividual  is  sup-  government 

posed  to  be  left  to  himself ;  as  it  is  said,  in  a  state  'a^s^nits 

^  duty, 

of  nature.     How  far  may  such  an  one  go  in  assert- 
ing and  defending  his  right  to  life  or  liberty  or  property  ?     Le- 


370  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL   SCIENCE.  [§  199. 

gaily  he  may  proceed  to  use  any  extremity  which  is  necessaiy. 
When  a  man  is  assailed  by  a  murderer,  if  he  is  alone,  and  can 
neither  summon  to  his  aid  any  official  or  a  fellow-man,  he  may 
take  the  life  of  the  assailant  of  his  own  life,  liberty,  or  prop- 
erty. Legally  he  may  do  this  in  any  case  of  actual  or  even  of 
threatened  peril.  This  defence  is  complete  and  legally  allowed 
in  all  tribunals  which  deserve  any  consideration,  whenever  it  is 
proved  that  the  perpetrator  of  the  act  was  brought  into  a  con- 
dition of  danger  or  fear  by  any  reasonable  construction  of  the 
conduct  of  his  assailant.  It  makes  no  difference  whether  it  be 
the  life,  the  liberty,  or  the  property,  which  is  assailed  ;  provided, 
again,  that  delay  in  using  extreme  and  summary  measures  would 
involve  serious  peril  to  either. 

Whether  a  man  in  all  such  cases  is  morally  justifiable  in  de- 
fending his  life,  liberty,  or  property,  is  altogether  another  ques- 
tion, and  one  which  can  be  decided  by  no  fixed  and  absolute 
rules.  It  will  generally  be  conceded,  that  from  a  regard  to 
others,  if  not  to  ourselves,  it  sometimes  becomes  the  duty  of  a 
man  to  waive  the  assertion  of  his  natural  rights,  and  especially 
to  hesitate  to  vindicate  them  by  the  extremest  measures  which 
the  law  may  allow. 

§  199.  Not  a  few  contend,  with  a  show  of  reason,  that  self- 
Self-defence  defence  in  any  form  is  inconsistent  with  the  rules 
not  incon-       ^^^  spirit  of  the  Christian  ethics  ;  and  that  it  is  so 

sistent  with  ^ 

Christian  far  characteristic  of  the  Christian  to  waive  rather 
ethics.  ^j^^jj  ^Q  assert  his  rights,  especially  in  cases  when  to 

assert  or  defend  them  would  involve  the  extremest  evil  to  the 
assailant.  Self-sacrifice  rather  than  self-defence,  they  contend, 
is  the  comprehensive  rule  and  principle  of  Christian  duty. 
Hon.  Life,  liberty,  and  property  should  always  be  sacri- 

resistance.  g^jg^j  rather  than  defended.  It  is  sufficient  here  to 
advert  to  the  fact  that  the  self-sacrifice  which  is  characteristic 
of  the  Christian  morality  concerns  the  extent  to  which  the 
fundamental  and  comprehensive  duty  of  love  should  be  applied, 
and  the  energy  with  which  it  should  be  asserted,  rather  than  to 


§  200.]       WANTS,   RIGHTS,  AND  MORAL   CLAIMS.  371 

the  form  of  external  actions  in  which  it  should  be  manifested. 
The  principles  which  should  control  the  feelings  and  the  will  are 
indeed  illustrated  by  special  instances  and  extremes  of  outward 
action  (§  136)  ;  but  the  instances  employed  are  not  to  be  taken 
as  positive  rules  for  the  direction  of  the  conduct,  except  so 
far  as  circumstances  justify  and  compel  them.  Even  the  ap- 
parently positive  direction,  "  I  say  unto  you,  that  ye  resist  not 
evil,"  as  is  obvious  from  its  very  breadth,  cannot  have  been 
intended  as  a  literal  direction,  and  should  not  be  so  interpreted ; 
but  only  as  expressing  the  supremacy  of  the  principle  of  over- 
coming love  above  all  opposing  maxims  or  the  contrary  spirit. 
The  courage  and  daring  of  the  Christian  defender  of  his  own 
life,  rights,  or  liberty,  or  those  of  his  friends,  are  all  the  more 
energetic  and  chivalrous  because  he  regards  his  life,  liberty,  and 
property  in  one  sense  as  not  his  own,  but  his  fellow-men's  and 
bis  Master's,  in  whose  keeping  he  may  trust  them,  and  in  whose 
help  he  may  confide.  The  Puritan,  the  Huguenot,  the  Cavalier, 
have  all,  in  their  several  ways,  manifested  this  quality  of 
Christian  ardor,  and  this  tenacity  of  heroic  self-respect,  without 
abating  in  the  least  the  tenderness  of  Christian  charity  or  the 
genuineness  of  its  forgiving  spirit. 

§  200.  The  duty  of  self-respect  is  akin  to  the  duty  of  assert- 
ing one's  personal  rights.  Self-respect  is  a  special  The  duty  of 
habit  or  disposition  which  impels  to  the  recognition  self-respect, 
and  assertion  of  one's  claims  as  a  man  to  respect  by  others. 
As  an  inward  impulse,  it  disposes  to  a  just  estimate  of  one's 
place  among  his  fellows.  In  a  secondary  but  most  important 
sense,  it  denotes  elevated  tastes,  aims,  and  purposes  for  one's 
self.  The  special  acts  to  which  it  prompts  will  vary  with  the 
circumstances  and  the  disposition  of  the  individual.  Men  vary 
very  greatly  in  their  sensitiveness  to  the  treatment  of  their 
legitimate  claims  by  others,  and  in  the  impulses  to  push  and 
defend  these  rights.  The  circumstances  which  should  deter- 
mine questions  of  duty  and  propriety  in  outward  action  also 
yary  very  greatly  at  different  times.     A  quick  sense  of  the 


372  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL   SCIENCE.  [§  201. 

rights  that  are  due  to  others  is  by  no  means  proportioned  to  a 
man's  sensitiveness  to  his  personal  claims.  That  a  man  ought 
often  to  assert  his  rights,  in  matters  both  great  and  small,  is 
obvious.  That  he  ought  more  or  less  frequently  to  waive  them, 
is  equally  clear.  Quickness  to  assert  and  readiness  to  yield 
may,  in  varying  circumstances,  both  proceed  from  a  high  tone 
of  self-respect.  A  timid  and  yielding  temper  is  often  the 
result  of  uncontrolled  emotional  sensibility,  and  betokens  moral 
weakness  and  personal  cowardice.  On  the  other  hand,  a  bump- 
tious and  fighting  disposition  argues  gross  insensibility  to  the 
sympathy  and  good  opinion  of  others,  such  as  is  often,  if  not 
usually,  attended  by  a  conscience  which  is  defiant  of  duty  and 
of  God.  But  whatever  a  man  may  do,  or  refrain  from  doing, 
in  the  assertion  of  his  personal  claims,  there  can  be  no  question 
that  he  ought  to  cherish  and  defend  his  inward  self-respect  as 
a  condition  of  personal  comfort  and  courage,  and  also  as  con- 
tributing to  his  moral  strength.  The  man  who  fails  in  respect 
for  himself  often  fails  in  respect  for  his  manhood  and  his  God. 

§  201.  This  inward  habit  is  a  legitimate  result  of  faith  in  such  a  rational 
and  moral  order  of  the  universe  as  provides  equally  for  the 
Foanded  well-being  of  all  moral  persons,  and  practically  conceives  of 

sssamption.  ^^^  ^^  equally  near  and  dear  to  God.  Such  a  faith  implies 
and  enforces  a  living  faith  in  personal  rights,  and  justifies 
any  and  every  man,  who  makes  duty  to  be  his  law,  in  a  constant  faith  in 
the  dignity  of  man  as  man,  and  in  the  personal  esteem  and  care  in  which 
he  is  held  by  the  Supreme  Moral  Ruler.  It  is  only  by  such  a  faith,  that 
self-respect  can  rise  above  the  narrowing  conditions  of  poverty  and  social 
depression,  can  remain  undisturbed  by  the  indignities  and  insults  which 
are  inflicted  by  wealth  and  pride,  or  can  find  comfort  in  the  absence  of 
human  sympathy.  Moreover,  it  is  only  as  self-respect  is  tempered  and 
inspired  by  this  ethical  element,  that  it  can  be  kept  free  from  the  over- 
bearing assumption  and  haughty  air  which  a  sense  of  one's  rights  is  apt  to 
engender,  and  can  school  itself  sensitively  to  respect  the  rights  of  others. 
"They  who  deny  God  destroy  man's  nobility"  as  it  is  viewed  by  the  eye 
of  God.  On  the  other  hand,  those  who  school  themselves  habitually  to 
think  of  their  fellow-men  as  equal  before  God,  and  as  alike  objects  of  in- 
terest to  his  feelings,  are  not  only  justified,  but  compelled  to  respect  their 
rights  as  sanctioned  and  enforced  by  his  purposes  and  his  will.  It  is  by 
a  recognition  of  these  principles,  that  we  solve  the  practical  paradox  which 


§201.]       WANTS,   RIGHTS,  AND  MORAL   CLAIMS.  373 

seems  to  be  furnished  in  the  conjunction  of  the  profoundest  Christian 
humility  with  the  most  sensitive  regard  to  personal  rights  and  the  most 
heroic  courage  in  maintaining  them.  This  paradox  has  often  been  exem- 
plified in  the  heroic  and  desperate  daring  for  the  defence  of  these  rights  by 
those  who  have  been  the  lowliest  in  their  humility  before  God.  They  cer- 
tainly sanction  such  a  sensitive  regard  for  these  rights  as  only  an  assured 
confidence  in  God  can  make  rational,  but  which  atheism  turns  into  a 
desperate  scramble  for  selfish  supremacy. 


374  ELEMENTS  OF  MOBAL   SCIENCE.  [§  202. 


11. 

CHAPTER  VII. 

DUTIES    TO    OUR    FELLOW-MEN:    THEIR    COMPREHENSIVE 
AND  FUNDAMENTAL  PRINCIPLE. 

§  202.  The  duties  of  man  to  his  fellow-men  are  all  included 
in,  and  enforced  by,  the  general  obligation  benevo- 

Dutiesof  '   ,  J'  &  o 

man  to  his  Icutly  to  promote  their  highest  good.  Every  man  is 
fellow,  morally  bound  to  feel  and  act  for  the  highest  well- 

on  what  being  of  his  fellow-men.     In  popular  and  familiar 

principle.  language,  the  one  comprehensive  law  of  man's  duty 
to  man  is,  Thoit  shalt  love  thy  neighbor  as  thyself.  This  princi- 
ple provides  for  and  enforces  all  our  duties  to  men.  These 
Divided  into  duties  are  naturally  divided  into  two  distinct  and 
two  classes,  comprehensive  groups,  —  duties  which  we  owe  to  all 
men  alike,  and  those  which  we  owe  to  special  individuals  and 
classes  of  men;  in  other  words,  the  duties  which  we  owe  to 
man  as  man,  and  the  duties  which  we  owe  to  those  who  have 
special  claims  upon  us  as  individuals  and  communities.  The 
ground  of  these  common  and  universal  duties,  as  will  be  seen, 
is  the  common 'relationship  which  places  mankind  on  a  common 
footing,  and  awakens  a  common  sympathy.  The  ground  of 
our  obligation  to  recognize  these  natural  rights  of  man  is  the 
confessed  necessity  of  these  rights  to  man's  welfare.  The 
grounds  of  our  more  special  and  limited  duties  are  limited  and 
special  relationships,  —  such  as  those  of  neighbors,  friends,  bene- 
factors, citizens,  etc.,  —  each  of  which  supposes  and  awakens  a 
special  affection  or  emotion. 


§202.]  DUTIES   TO   OUB  FELLOW-MEN.  375 

The  comprehensive  and  fundamental  law  of  duties  of  every  class  has 
already  been  explained  to  require  the  voluntary  desire  and    „     . 
realization  of  the  highest  good  possible  to  our  nature  and  cir-    gistent  with 
cumstances  as  men  (§§  52,  58).     This  supposes  that  we  can    securing  our 
know  the  several  capacities  of  our  being,  and  can  find  in    <*^"  highest 
their  relation  to  one  another  the  supreme  end  for  which  we    ^°®  * 
exist,  and  in  this  end  an  ideal  law  for  our  voluntary  desires  and  activities. 
In  this  end,  we  also  find  the  will  of  God  made  manifest;  and  thus  the  law 
of  conscience  is  enforced  by  God's  personal  authority. 

The  general  law  of  duty  does  not  limit  our  thoughts  or  our 
actions  to  ourselves.     Man  is  a  social,  as  truly  as  ^    ,  ^ 

•^  Includes 

he  is  an  individual,  being.  As  a  social  being,  he  tiiegood 
can  attain  the  highest  good  possible  for  himself,  only  ^  ^  ^^' 
as  he  benevolently  desires  and  acts  for  the  highest  good  of  others. 
Moreover,  the  supreme  good  of  the  individual,  in  a  rational  and 
well-ordered  universe,  can  never  conflict  with  that  of  the  com- 
munity. He  who  sacrifices  his  separate  good  to  the  general 
welfare  finds  the  highest  good  for  himself  thereby.  "  He  that 
loseth  his  life  shall  find  it."  A  rational  science  of  the  universe 
of  fact  and  phenomena  requires  that  we  assume  that  every 
force  and  law  which  holds  good  for  a  part  should  be  consistent 
with  those  of  every  other  part,  and  that  both  should  conspire  in 
the  harmonious  working  of  the  whole.  The  same  is  true  of  the 
personal  and  moral  universe  in  respect  to  its  constitution,  and 
the  duties  which  follow.  This  does  not  imply,  as  has  been 
explained,  that  each  man  should  desire  the  good  of  others 
because  the  secondary  effect  of  their  good,  whether  near  or 
remote,  will  be  a  private  good  to  himself  ;  but  that  the  measure 
of  the  worth  of  any  affection  or  impulse,  as  compared  with 
another,  is  the  subjective  good  which  it  gives  in  his  own  experi- 
ence, and  its  results  to  others.  The  affection  of  self-sacrificing 
love,  when  it  is  called  for,  is  the  best  affection  to  him  who 
exercises  it,  and  therefore  takes  precedence  over  the  self- 
seeking  or  selfish  affection,  whenever  there  is  a  temptation  to 
the  exercise  of  the  latter.  It  were  a  contradiction  in  terms, 
to  say  that  we  ought  to  love  our  neighbor  best  because  in  this 


376  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL  SCIENCE.  [§  203. 

way  we  love  ourselves  best.  Such  love  would  be  no  love  at 
all,  but  selfishness.  But  it  is  no  contradiction  to  say  that  we 
may  and  must  estimate  the  nature  of  love  to  self,  and  love  to 
our  neighbor,  by  our  experience  of  the  good  of  each ;  or  that 
we  find  in  the  fact,  that  it  is  more  blessed  to  give  than  to 
receive,  an  evidence  of  the  place  which  this  voluntary  love 
should  take  as  a  law  of  action  and  sacrifice.  We  do  not 
love  our  fellow-man  in  fact,  when  we  are  moved  to  the  immedi- 
ate or  remote  bearings  of  his  good  upon  our  good  as  an  effect. 
But,  when  we  judge  between  love  and  selfishness,  we  cannot 
but  know  that  the  one  is  a  higher  and  better  affection  than 
the  other. 

These  principles  being  established,  we  proceed  to  show  that 
benevolence  is  fundamental  to  all  the  duties  which  man  owes  to 
his  fellows,  and  therefore  includes  and  enforces  them  all. 

§  203.  As  preliminary,  we  will  explain  the  import  of  the 
law.     Subjectively,  the  benevolence  or  love  which  it 

Benevolence  ^  ^  > 

required,  requires  is  7iot  a  sentiment,  but  a  principle;  principle 
and  object  being  uscd  here,  not  as  a  directing  rule,  but  as  a 
tireiycon-  force  impelling  to  action.  It  is  also  voluntary, 
and  as  voluntary,  not  transient,  but  a  permanent 
state  or  purpose  of  the  will.  Such  a  purpose  must  necessarily 
animate  the  casual  emotions,  and  constitute  a  loving  temper  or 
disposition  (§  37).  It  must  also  form  the  inner  habits,  and 
refine  and  elevate  the  character  and  manners.  It  must  impel 
to  kind  words  and  beneficent  actions,  thus  manifesting  and 
strengthening  itself  by  external  doings.  Love,  as  thus  defined, 
is  manifestly  a  moral  and  not  a  natural  excellence ;  not  a 
peculiarity  of  constitution,  but  the  product  of  will ;  not  a  trait 
of  inheritance,  but  the  work  and  possession  of  the  individual ; 
not  an  impulse  of  sentiment,  but  a  force  of  intelligence ;  not 
fitful  and  uncertain,  but  permanent,  uniform,  and  trustworthy. 

Objectively,  this  voluntary  love  respects  our  fellow-men;  all  of 
them  alike,  and  because  they  are  our  fellows.  Such  an  act 
can  only  be  exercised  or  performed  as  an  internal,  and  not  as 


§203.]  DUTIES   TO   OUR  FELLOW-MEN.  377 

an  external,  activity ;  for  the  reason,  that  only  a  few  can  be 
reached  —  though  all  may  be  included  —  by  the  love  or  the 
acts  of  any  one  man.  We  owe  love,  and  can  render  love,  to 
all;  but  we  can  only  do  good  to  a  few,  "as  we  have  oppor- 
tunity.** 

As  men,  they  are  alike  in  one  common  endowment  or  capa- 
city, —  the  capacity  for  sensitive  good  or  evil.     As 

•^  I  J  &  Men  alike 

such,  they  appeal  to  our  capacity  for  sympathy  with  in  a  capacity 
their  happiness  or  misery.  Animals  are  like  them  ^^^  ^^^^' 
in  this  ;  and  hence  animals,  as  we  shall  see,  have  a  natural  and 
moral  claim  upon  our  benevolent  love  (§  308).  Men  not  only 
enjoy  and  suffer,  but  they  enjoy  and  suffer  in  kind  and  quality 
similarly  with  ourselves ;  and  hence  we  have  a  fellow-feeling 
with  them  so  far  as,  by  memory  or  imagination,  we  can  more 
vividly  represent  their  pleasures  and  their  pains.  Sometimes 
one  touch  of  nature  will  make  the  whole  world  kin  in  a  common 
sympathy  towards  all  mankind.  But  men  are  more  than  sensi- 
tive beings  :  they  are  also  rational  and  moral,  as  well  as  intelli- 
gent ;  and  their  community  with  us  in  these  higher  endowments 
is  the  ground  for  greater  breadth  and  intensity  of  sympathy. 

Sensibility  to  pleasure  and  pain  is  a  common  characteristic 
or  attendant  of  all  the  experiences  of  our  fellows. 

^  Also  for  dis- 

Tliese  all  suppose  and  appeal  to  a  natural  capacity  interested 
for  sympathy^  or  disinterested  affection,  which  is  ^i^™P****y* 
universal  to  the  human  species.  Though  this  is  called  an  affec- 
tion, we  do  not  attribute  to  it  moral  quality.  When  we  assert 
that  it  is  disinterested,  we  do  not  mean  that  it  is  so  in  the  moral 
acceptation  of  the  term.  We  have  to  do  only  with  the  natural 
sensibility  as  it  might  be  supposed  to  exist  and  act,  were  man 
destitute  of  the  voluntary  power  and  incapable  of  moral  respon- 
sibility, and  (as  it  often  does  exist)  apart  from  any  moral  worth. 
The  question  with  which  we  are  concerned  is,  whether  man,  as 
such  a  being,  is  capable  of  being  made  happy  or  miserable  by 
the  joys  and  sorrows  of  his  fellow-beings,  irrespective  of  any 
relation,  near  or  remote,  to  his  own  happiness  or  suffering. 


378  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL  SCIENCE.  [§  203. 

Two  schools  divide  the  opinions  of  men  upon  this  question, 
—  the  disinterested,  and  the  selfish :  the  first  holding 
schools  of  to  an  original  capacity  in  man  for  pleasure  or  pain 
op  n  on.  ixoxn  the  joys  or  sorrows  of  his  kind  ;  the  second, 

that  all  these  apparently  disinterested  feelings  are  the  factitious 
products  of  some  indirect  connection,  by  association  or  causa- 
tion, with  our  own  real  or  imagined  joys  or  sorrows. 

Very  recently,  the  terms  altruism  and  altruistic  have  been 
used  by  a  certain  school  of  thinkers  to  designate  the  fact  and 
doctrine  of  natural  disinterestedness,  so  far  as  they  can  hold  to 
the  natural,  as  contrasted  with  the  derived. 

We  hold  that  man  is  disinterested  by  nature,  for  the  reason 
that  he  uniformly  finds  unalloyed  pleasure  in  wit- 
interested  nessing  the  happiness  of  his  fellow-men,  provided 
by  nature.  -^{^  selfish  will  is  in  no  way  crossed  or  disturbed ; 
and  this  apart  from  all  hope  of  selfish  recompense,  either  direct 
or  indirect.  There  is  no  evidence  that  the  veriest  monsters  of 
cruelty  ever  take  direct  pleasure  in  inflicting  or  witnessing  pain 
for  its  own  sake.  In  every  instance  where  they  seem  to  do  so, 
it  is  the  love  of  power,  or  the  desire  of  self-forgetting  excite- 
ment, or  some  other  simple  or  complicated  feeling,  which 
explains  what  seems  and  is  so  often  interpreted  as  the  mere 
wantonness  of  cruelty,  or  the  fiendishness  of  hatred  or  rage. 

The  common  likeness  or  relationship  in  our  fellow-men  as 
men,  appealing  as  it  does  to  a  common  sensibility  in  us  to  their 
well-being,  imposes  benevolence  as  a  duty  to  all  men  alike,  in 
so  far  as  all  men  have  a  common  nature.  Hence  the  rule, 
"  Thou  shalt  love  thy  fellow-man  as  man."  As  men  they  are 
also  susceptible  of  different  degrees  and  kinds  of  good.  As 
merely  sentient,  they  are  akin  to  animals  in  so  far  as  they  are 
only  sentient,  and  capable  of  animal  sensations  no  higher  and 
finer,  and  perhaps  now  and  then  lower,  than  those  of  certain 
animals.  On  this  ground,  their  appeal  for  a  response  of  love 
would  seem  to  be  feebler  than  that  of  the  animal.  But  inas- 
much as  many,  not  to  say  most,  of  their  sensibilities,  are  higher 


§204.]  DUTIES   TO   OUR  FELLOW-MEN.  379 

than  those  which  the  noblest  animals  can  feel,  their  appeal  is 
immeasurably  stronger. 

As  we  compare  the  sensibilities  which  are  human  with  one  another, 
they  differ  greatly  in  natural  value,  both  as  direct  experi-    ™,  .. ., 

ences  and  in  their  immediate  and  remote  results.  Conse-  jties  differ 
quently  they  make  a  stronger  or  weaker  claim  upon  our  in  rank  and 
answering  love.  As  we  rise  into  the  region  of  moral  sensi-  ^*l"e* 
bilities  with  their  nearer  and  remoter  blessings,  we  find  that  these  displace 
all  the  others,  and  command  our  benevolent  will  to  esteem  and  prefer 
them  to  all  other  good.  But  in  the  command  to  love  our  neighbor  as  our- 
8elf  we  are  required  and  supposed  to  love  ourselves  as  moral  beings;  i.e.,  to 
control  and  regulate  our  love  to  ourselves  by  a  just  measure  of  the  bless- 
ings which  we  desire  for  ourselves,  according  to  a  perfect  moral  standard. 
Following  this  rule,  we  should  also  love  our  neif/hbor  as  a  moral  being,  and 
measure  out  the  benefits  which  we  desire  for  him  according  to  their  moral 
value. 

§  204.  It  is  easy  to  see,  that,  under  this  rule,  the  duties  which 
we  owe  to  individual  men  will  by  no  means  be  the 
same.    On  the  contrary,  the  simple,  comprehensive,   i^^g  involves 
and  constant  duty  of   benevolence  to  all,  will  ex-  » variety  of 

duties. 

pand  mto  a  great  variety  of  special  duties,  that 
may  change  with  every  instant.  It  is  easy  also  to  see,  that, 
from  the  general  rule  to  benevolently  regard  the  highest  good 
of  all  men,  a  great  variety  of  special  rules  can  be  derived  and 
enforced.  The  only  possible  question  which  can  arise  is 
whether  this  provides  for  and  enforces  the  rules  of  all  our 
special  duties. 

No  man  can  reflect  in  the  most  superficial  way  on  the  com- 
prehensive law,  "Thou  shalt  love  thy  neighbor  as 
thyself,"  without  discovering  that  it  provides  for  a  neighbor: 
great  variety  of  these  duties,  and  contains  the  germs  variety  of 

relations. 

and  suggestions  of  an  entire  system  of  practical 
morality.  The  man  whom  we  are  to  love  as  ourselves  is  our 
neighbor  ;  i.e.,  our  nearest  fellow-man,  whosoever  he  happens  to 
be  ;  i.e.,  every  man  and  any  man,  even  if  he  only  chances  to  be 
next  to  us  for  a  moment  in  the  encounters  and  shiftings  of  life. 
Be  he  black  or  white,  rich  or  poor,  learned  or  ignorant,  country- 


380  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL   SCIENCE.  [§  204. 

man  or  alien,  virtuous  or  vicious,  we  are  bound  to  love  him,  not 
because  he  has  become  our  neighbor  and  we  have  become  wonted 
to  him  or  have  learned  to  like  him,  but  because  he  is  our  fellow- 
man,  and  therefore  one  to  whom  we  owe  sympathy  and  service. 

We  should  ordinarily  give  preference  to  our  neighbor  over  one  who  is 
more  remote ;  and  therefore  the  law  does  not  read  abstractly, 

Why  should  ^^^^  ^^  really  implies,  Thou  shalt  love  thy  fellow-man;  but 
■we  prefer  our  ./        *  ^  > 

neighbor}  ^^^^  ^^  idiomatic  speech,  TIiou  shalt  love  thy  neighbor.  For 
this  there  are  many  reasons  which  give  emphasis  and  ex- 
planation to  the  precept.  First  of  all,  "neighbor "  means  the  man  nearest 
to  hand,  and  therefore  the  man  on  whom  we  can  most  conveniently  confer 
a  favor.  He  is  also  one  with  whose  wants  we  are  most  fully  acquainted, 
and  therefore  whom  we  can  help  most  advantageously.  He  addresses  our 
sympathies  most  directly,  as  a  person  to  a  person,  and  therefore  makes  a 
stronger  appeal  to  our  feelings;  his  sorrows  and  joys  being  present  to  our 
observation,  and  commanding  our  sympathy.  It  is  a  very  different  thing, 
to  most  men,  to  hear  a  cry  of  distress  or  to  witness  a  scene  of  agony  in  the 
house  nearest  to  themselves,  from  what  it  is  to  imagine  either  as  it  is 
reported  across  the  ocean  from  a  house  and  a  person  whom  they  have  never 
seen,  in  India  or  Japan.  The  rule  seems  also  to  say,  the  man  who  does  not 
love  his  neighbor  does  not  love  anybody.  The  man  who  loves  men  in  gen- 
eral, but  loves  no  man  in  particular,  how  much  soever  he  may  prate  of  his 
universal  love,  loves  no  one  in  fact.  Moreover,  men  are  moved  to  become 
neighbors  very  often  because  connected  by  family  ties,  by  mutual  likings,  by 
gratitude;  and  this  fact  becomes  an  accessory  explanation  and  confirma- 
tion of  the  precept.  By  these  tests  is  exploded  that  pretentious  and  super- 
fine cosmopolitan  benevolence  which  loves  humanity  so  intensely  as  to 
love  no  living  man  in  particular. 

While  the  rule  commands  us  to  love  all  men  as  men,  and 

because  they  are  men,  it  impliedly  provides  for  our 

recognizes       doing  more  and  caring  more  for  some  men  than  for 

a  difference    others,  and  thus  recognizes  and  inculcates  the  duties 

in  men. 

of  gratitude,  and  those  founded  on  kindred,  friend- 
ship, and  nationality.  At  the  same  time,  it  guards  against  the 
abuse  of  these  special  and  limited  claims,  by  reminding  us  of 
the  general  law  which  rises  above  these  particular  limitations. 
The  parable  of  the  Good  Samaritan,  uttered  in  response  to  the 
inquiry,  "  Who  is  my  neighbor  ?  "  at  once  enlarged  and  limited 
the  law  in  each  of  the  du-ections  adverted  to. 


§§205,206.]        DUTIES   TO   OUB  FELLOW-MEN.  381 

§  205.  We   are   also   commanded  to  love  our  neighbor  as 
ourselves,  —  that  is,  as  really  as  we  love  ourselves, 

'  "^  Love  to  our 

and  yet  under  the  same  limitations  under  which  we  neighbor  as 
should  ^ove  ourselves.  This  implies  that  we  have  '***'"''*^'  *'^*' 
a  capacity  as  real  and  natural  for  an  interest  in  the  welfare  of 
others  as  in  our  own.  But  this  by  no  means  implies  that  our 
sensibility  to  their  joys  and  sorrows  is  the  same  or  a  similar 
experience  with  our  own.  A  personal  experience  and  a  sympa- 
thetic sharing,  whether  of  joy  or  sorrow,  are  widely  different : 
one's  own  joy  or  sorrow  differs  from  one's  fellow-feeling  with 
the  joy  or  sorrow  of  another.  It  is  only  by  a  figure,  that  we 
are  said  to  make  either  our  own.  Nor,  again,  does  it  imply  that 
we  should  do  every  thing  in  act  for  others  which  we  would  do 
for  ourselves.  This  would  often  be  impracticable,  for  the  rea- 
son that  we  do  not  know  as  well  what  others  need  as  what 
we  need  for  ourselves.  Then,  again,  true  love  would  dictate 
that  each  man,  so  far  as  is  possible,  should  supply  his  own 
wants,  and  sometimes  find  his  comfort  solely  within  himself. 
These  and  other  limitations  are  provided  in  the  comprehensive 
qualification  that  we  ought  to  love  our  fellow-men  as  moral 
beings;  i.e.,  we  are  to  measure  the  benefits  we  impart,  and  the 
love  we  render,  by  a  moral  standard.  The  law  commands  us 
to  set  the  highest  value  on  moral  attainments  and  progress  for 
others  as  for  ourselves ;  and  to  sacrifice  to  these,  sensual  and 
vicious  enjoyment,  and  the  perverted  joys  of  selfishness  and 
malice,  as  also  the  ease  and  sloth  of  indolence  and  dependence. 
We  should  also  prefer  future  and  permanent  to  immediate  and 
transient  good,  and  do  this  solicitously,  systematically,  and  cour- 
ageously. 

§  206.  It  cannot  be  questioned,  we  think,  that  the  law  of 
benevolence  enforces  and  provides  for  many  of  the 
special  duties  of  feeling  and  action  which  we  owe  to   love  enforces 
our  fellow-men.     The  only  question  which  can  pos-   *"*"y  special 
sibly  be  raised  is,  whether  it  comprehends  all  these 
duties.     Upon  this  point  moralists  are  divided :  some  holding 


382  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL  SCIENCE. 


[§  206. 


that  the  duties  enforced  by  benevolence  are  co-ordinate  with 
other  classes  of  duties,  e.g.,  those  of  gratitude  and  veracity; 
and  others,  that  these  and  every  conceivable  class  are  en- 
forced and  comprehended  by  this  general  duty  of  benevolence. 
To  avoid  a  mistake  which  is  often  made,  we  call  attention  to 
the  difference  between  the  position  that  benevolence  compre- 
hends and  enforces  all  duties,  of  every  description,  and  the 
position  that  benevolence  as  explained  comprehends  all  the 
duties  owed  by  man  to  his  fellow-man.  The  last  is  the  position 
which  we  maintain,  leaving  the  first  question  for  the  present 

Reasons  for      Undecided. 

holding  to  Our  rcasons  are  the  following :  — 

(1)  Benevolence  is  a  force  which  it  is  conceiv- 
able should  exist.    The  agencies  exist  which  might  bring  it  into 
operation ;   the  influences  which  tend  to  call  it  into 

(1)  Benevo- 
lence a  con-     action   exist   also.     It   is   conceded   that   it  might 

ceivabie  prevail  everywhere,  and  be  exerted  with  the.  utmost 

energy.     The  force  is,  in  fact,  exerted  to  a  certain 

degree.     It  is  in  its  nature  a  comprehensive  or  generic  force, 

impelling  to  human  welfare  of  every  kind  ;  it  favors  and  impels 

to  every  conceivable  human  virtue.     There  is  no  single  duty 

from   man   to   man  which   it  does   not   enforce,  to   a  certain 

degree.     Gratitude,  veracity,  justice,  and  natural  affection  are 

all  promoted  by  it,  and  are,  to  a  certain  extent,  the  products 

of  its   presence  and   energy.     From   these   considerations  we 

infer  the  probability  that  this  form   of  emotion  is  sufficiently 

comprehensive  to  include  and  enforce  every  conceivable  duty 

which  man  owes  to  his  fellow-man. 

(2)  Were  all  men  perfectly  benevolent,  the  condition  and 

,..  »,^  .         character  of  men,  so  far  as  these  depend  on  their 

(2)  The  force  '■ 

would  pro-  fellows,  would  be  as  perfect  as  they  could  possibly 
tion  ot^char-  ^^^^ome.  Their  character  would  be  perfect  so  far  as 
Bcter  and  any  and  every  influence  from  without  might  tend  to 
this  perfection.  Each  man  would  love  his  fellow- 
man  as  a  moral  being,  and  would  act  and  sacrifice  to  make  him 


§206.]  DUTIES   TO   OUR  FELLOW-MEN.  383 

perfectly  good,  and,  so  far  as  lay  within  himself,  to  make  him 
perfectly  happy. 

The  united  influence  of  all  upon  each  would  conspire  to  this  effect  with- 
out jealousy  or  envy  or  any  selfish  or  divided  feeling.  Every  man  would 
know  that  his  fellow  was  his  earnest  and  disinterested  friend,  and  would 
find  in  the  confidence  and  the  interchange  of  sympathetic  feeling  a  con- 
stant stimulus  to  activity  for  all.  Nature  would  be  explored  as  never 
before  in  the  inmost  of  her  capacities  and  the  shyest  of  her  secrets  ;  he- 
cause  science  would  be  stimulated  by  the  perfect  disinterestedness  of  every 
student,  inspired  and  aided  by  the  helpful  thoughts  of  every  other  student, 
all  eager  to  contribute  of  their  best  in  united  researches  and  to  supplement 
the  defects  of  each  other.  Invention,  art,  and  skill  would  be  stimulated 
and  rewarded  by  the  highest  and  purest  incentives,  and  all  the  economies 
and  resources  of  nature  and  society  would  be  utilized  to  the  utmost.  Even 
with  all  the  physical  defects  and  limitations  that  are  incidental  to  the  pres- 
ent material  and  social  condition  of  man,  the  triumph  of  this  single  moral 
force  would  make  real  a  perfection  of  character  and  a  blessedness  of  human 
condition  which  the  most  ardent  enthusiasts  have  scarcely  dared  to  dream 
of.  Let  the  spring  or  principle  of  human  action  which  we  call  a  benevolent 
will  be  made  real  in  and  by  every  human  being,  and  man  and  human 
society  would  be  flooded  with  perfection  and  joy.  This  sober  statement 
of  the  conditions  which  are  required  for  an  ideally  perfect  and  hapi^y 
human  race  goes  far  to  prove  that  benevolence  provides  for  all  the  duties 
of  man  to  his  fellow-men.  Should  it  be  said  that  happiness  is  not  virtue, 
no  one  holds  that  it  is;  but  the  voluntary  desire  of  the  highest  well-being 
of  sentient  and  moral  beings  may  still  be  virtue.  It  is  sufficient  to  add 
that  virtue  and  happiness  surely  are  not,  or  ought  not  to  be,  incompatible, 
and  that  virtue  as  a  spring  overflowing  with  happiness  would  leave  little 
to  be  desired  or  provided  except  for  a  metaphysical  abstractionist  or  a 
transcendental  doctrinaire. 

(3)  The  principle  is  sanctioned  by  the  direct  authority  of  the 
Scriptures.     Of  the  two  great  commandments  rec- 
ognized as  fundamental  and  comprehensive  by  the  is  recognized 

greatest  of  teachers,  one  relates  to  our  duties  to  i»  the  Scrip- 
tures. 
God  ;  and  the  other  to  our  duties  to  man,  viz..  Thou 

shalt  love  thy  neighbor  as  thyself.     The  prominence  of  these  two 

would  justify  the  inference  that  the  second  comprehends  and 

enforces  all  the  duties  which  man  owes  to  his  fellow.     Paul 

seems  to  meet  the  question  distinctly,  and  to  decide  it  positively, 

when  he  says  expressly,  in  a  form  more  philosophical  than  he 


384  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL   SCIENCE.  [§  206. 

often  uses,  that  all  the  special  precepts  of  duty  from  man  to 
man  —  as,  "  Thou  shalt  not  kill,'*  "  Thou  shalt  not  steal,"  etc. 
—  are  "briefly  comprehended  in  this  saying,  namely,  Thou 
shalt  love  thy  neighbor  as  thyself ;  "  and  he  adds  in  the  way  of 
argument,  *'  Love  worketh  no  ill  to  his  neighbor,  therefore  love 
is  the  faljilling  of  the  law/*  No  declaration  can  be  more  ex- 
plicit in  its  tenor,  or  more  philosophical  in  its  form,  than  this. 
The  character  of  Christ  is  also  given  in  the  brief  phrase,  He 
pleased  not  himself;  and,  when  all  the  perfections  of  God  are 
gathered  into  a  single  word,  that  word  is  love.  The  fact  that 
this  generalization  was  not  reached  by  the  best  of  the  ancient 
moralists,  and  yet  was  anticipated  in  the  law  of  Moses  and 
confirmed  by  the  practical  and  speculative  teachings  of  Christ, 
forms  no  argument  against  its  speculative  soundness. 


No  truth  is  better  confirmed  by  the  history  of  ethical  thought,  than  that 
a  practical  standard  of  duty  and  aspiration  among  men  has 

Con  rme      y    ^f^g^  been  proposed  for  conduct  and  character  before  it  has 
the  history  of  ^     '^ 

ethical  truth.  t>een  possible  to  establish  and  justify  it  by  speculative  reason- 
ing. Certainly  the  principle  which  is  so  confidently  taught 
and  illustrated  in  the  Scriptures,  that  love  is  the  fulfilment  of  the  law  of 
duty,  has  no  less  value  or  authority  because  it  was  first  urged  for  practical 
ends,  and  required  generations  of  martyrdom  and  self-sacrifice  to  give  it 
authority  and  dignity  in  the  schools  of  philosophy.  That  the  Christian 
practice  and  the  Christian  theory  were  an  advance  upon  what  had  been 
recognized  and  received  before,  can  not  and  will  not  be  denied  by  any 
candid  student  of  history.  The  essential  equality  and  worth  of  individual 
men,  despite  differences  of  station  and  even  of  nationality,  were  indeed 
abundantly  emphasized  by  the  Stoics.  A  gentle  and  reflecting  nature,  like 
Marcus  Aurelius,  could  derive  moving  generalizations  of  sympathy  and 
pathos  from  his  meditations  on  the  inequalities  and  disproportions  of  man's 
condition  ;  but  the  recognition  of  unselfish  love  as  a  practical  principle, 
which  like  a  central  and  glowing  fire  should  control  the  purposes  within, 
and  animate  to  every  single  act  of  duty,  is  a  precept  for  human  action 
which  was  slow  to  be  recognized  as  a  principle  for  Christian  speculation 
even  in  the  schools  of  Christian  thinking.  Its  distinct  recognition  by  the 
world  at  any  time  can  be  best  explained  by  the  exemplification,  in  the 
person  of  the  Son  of  man,  of  that  "  enthusiasm  of  humanity  "  which,  after 
it  had  been  lived  as  a  fact,  came  slowly  to  be  recognized  and  taught  as  an 
ethical  doctrine. 


§207.]  DUTIES  TO  OUR  FELLOW-MEN.  385 

§  207.  To  these  arguments  it  will  be  objected  :         Objections. 

(1)  That  the  impulse  or  principle  of  benevolence  neither  pro- 
vides for  nor  enforces  certain  classes  of  duties  to 
our  fellow-men,  as  those  of  veracity  and  justice^  of  j^iis  to  en- 
gratitude  and  natural  affection;  or,  if  it  provides  for  force  certain 
these  in  a  general  way,  it  fails  to  do  so  with  the 
force  and  discrimination  which  are  required  for  their  practical 
efficiency.  Those  who  urge  this  objection  must  assume  that 
man  is  somehow  endowed  with  certain  independent  and  instinc- 
tive impulses  to  these  virtues,  which  of  themselves  enforce  and 
direct  to  every  one  of  their  appropriate  duties  whenever  each 
is  required  ;  and  this  not  only  in  general,  but  in  every  individual 
case  when  a  single  duty  of  the  class  is  called  for.  They  must 
also  hold  that  these  impulses  adjust  themselves  to  one  another 
with  unerring  precision,  as  when,  in  a  single  instance,  a  duty 
of  gratitude  takes  precedence  of  a  duty  of  affection,  or  vice 
versa;  while  in  other  cases,  as  is  inferred,  oge  class  of  impulses 
should  never  give  way  to  another,  as  some  assert  of  the  obliga- 
tions to  veracity  and  justice.  They  must  also  hold,  in  order 
to  be  consistent,  that,  although  benevolence  may  enforce  these 
duties,  it  does  not  give  them  their  sole,  much  less  their  supreme 
and  final,  moral  authority.  The  duty  of  benevolence,  by  those 
who  hold  this  position,  is  regarded  as  being  simply  co-ordinate 
with  the  duties  of  gratitude  and  veracity  and  the  rest,  and  not 
as  superior  or  generic  to  all.^  These  objections  can  be  an- 
swered only  in  detail. 

1  It  is  worthy  of  notice,  that,  in  his  Dissertation  (II.),  Butler  takes  the 
position  that  "  benevolence  and  the  want  of  it,  singly  considered,  are  in 
no  sort  the  whole  of  virtue  and  vice.  For,  if  this  were  the  case  in  the 
review  of  one's  own  character,  or  that  of  others,  onr  moral  understanding 
and  moral  sense  would  be  indifferent  to  every  thing  but  the  degrees  in 
which  benevolence  prevailed,  and  the  degrees  in  which  it  was  wanting." 
In  his  sermon  on  the  "Love  of  our  Neighbor,"  however,  he  says,  "I  pro- 
ceed to  consider,  lastly,  what  is  affirmed  of  the  precept  now  explained, 
that  it  comprehends  in  it  all  others,  i.e.,  that  to  love  our  neighbor  as  our- 
selves includes  in  it  all  virtues;  "  adding,  in  the  way  of  answering  objec- 
tions, among  other  things,  that  "  reason,  considered  merely  as  subservient 


386  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL  SCIENCE.  [§  207. 

We  select  first  the  duty  of  veracity,  and  ask,  What  are  its 

relations  to  the  general   duty  of   benevolence?    It 

from  the       "^^^^  ^^^  t)e  denied,  that  the  mutual  understanding 

duty  of        and  mutual  confidence,  to  which  the  strictest  ve- 

reracity. 

racity  is  essential,  are  great  blessings  to  man,  to 
which  benevolence  would  always  impel ;  and,  consequently, 
that,  in  many  instances,  benevolence  requires  veracity.  The 
objector  assumes  that  there  are  instances  in  which  these  good 
results  would  not  follow,  and  that,  in  these  cases,  the  duty 
would  not  be  enforced  by  benevolence  alone.  He  overlooks 
two  things :  first,  that  it  is  not  easy  to  show,  in  many  cases, 
that  no  evil  would  follow  the  infraction  of  the  duty ;  or,  if  this 
were  granted  of  a  few,  it  does  not  follow  that  the  duty  which 
man  owes  to  himself  would  not,  in  every  such  instance,  enforce 
the  strictest  veracity  ;  and  thus,  by  the  operation  of  both  these 
impulses,  the  duty  itself  is  provided  for  without  a  possible  ex- 
ception which  WOUI4I  offend  an  enlightened  conscience  (§  224). 
That  justice  is  enforced  by  benevolence,  in  many  cases,  will 
not  be  questioned.  Justice  is  defined  as  the  accordance,  to 
The  duty  of  ^^^^^  man,  of  his  dues  or  rights.  So  long  and  so 
justice.  far  as  the  accordance  of  these  rights  is  a  blessing 

to  each  and  to  all,  so  far  and  so  long  will  benevolence  bid  us 
render  these  rights  to  every  man,  —  rights  of  every  sort, 
"tribute  to  whom  tribute  is  due,  custom  to  whom  custom, 
honor  to  whom  honor."  So  far,  benevolence  enforces  and 
provides  for  justice.  Should  no  conflict  occur  between  the 
public  welfare  and  the  so-called  private  rights,  benevolence,  in 
impelling  to  the  first,  would  always  enforce  the  last.  Should 
such  a  conflict  arise;  i.e.,  should  a  man  be  called  on  —  as  it 
is  supposed  he  might  be  —  to  surrender  to  the  general  welfare 
a  right  which  ordinarily  it  would  be  his  duty  to  assert,  —  as 

to  benevolence,  as  assisting  to  produce  the  greatest  good,  will  teach  us  to 
have  particular  regard  to  these  (natural  and  special)  relations  and  circum- 
stances; because  it  is  plainly  for  the  good  of  the  world  that  they  should  be 
regarded** 


§  207.]  DUTIES  TO   OUB  FELLOW-MEN.  387 

of  property,  liberty,  or  life,  —  if  I  take  from  him  that  right, 
or  suffer  him  to  be  deprived  of  it,  I  perform  the  act  to  which 
he  ought  himself  willingly  to  consent.  If  it  be  asserted  that  it 
never  can  be  for  the  general  welfare  to  infringe  upon  a  private 
right,  even  with  the  consent  of  the  party  concerned,  then  benevo- 
lence can  never,  in  the  extremest  cases  of  necessity,  impel  to 
such  an  act  as  a  duty  on  my  part.  Such  an  unqualified  asser- 
tion is,  however,  refuted  by  the  actual  practice  of  mankind,  as 
individuals  and  communities,  under  the  pressure  of  necessity. 

The  love  to  our  neighbor,  which  is  commanded,  is  love  to  him 
as  a  moral  being,  who  is  supposed  to  acknowledge 

°'  .  Trnebenevo- 

the  obligations  and  limits  of  duty  with  respect  to  lence  regards 
himself.     Every  blessino^  which  I  am  commanded  to  ™*"  *^ 

•^  °  moral. 

wish   or  to  will   or  to  effect  for  him  is   therefore 
necessarily  limited  by  his  real  welfare  as  controlled  by  the  law 
of  duty  which  he  is  presumed  to  accept. 

(2)  It  is  urged  still  further,  that  the  principle  under  consid- 
eration requires  uo  often  or  occasionally  to  neglect 

,  .  .      °  (2)  Requires 

or  sacrifice  the  special  affections,  as  of  gratitude  or  ti,e  sacrifice 

kindred,  and  must  consequently  introduce  a  cold  and  ^^  special 
'  ^  '^  affections, 

calculating  morality  in  place  of  one  of  warm  and 

living  impulses.    To  this  it  may  be  replied  :  This  objection  finds 

all  its  force  in  the  untenable  assumption  that  the  welfare  of  man 

is  not  furthered  in  general  by  allowing  the  affections  of  kindred 

and  friendship  to  inspire  and  control  the  inner  and  the  outer 

life.     It  is  to  the  outer  life,  it  should  be  observ^ed,  that  the 

application  of  our  principle  chiefly  relates,  —  not  wholly,  indeed, 

but  chiefly.     It  mostly  concerns  itself  with  our  duties,  specially 

so  considered  ;  i.e.,  with  Jiow  we  are  to  act,  and  not  with  how  we 

should  feel.     It  does  indeed  require  us  to  control  and  regulate 

our  feelings,  even  the  most  sacred  and  the  tenderest,  principally 

under  the  law  of  duty  to  ourselves,  incidentally  and  partially 

from  the  law  of  duty  to  our  fellows  ;  but  it  is  with  what  we  are 

to  do,  not  with  how  we  should  feel  in  respect  to  our  kindred, 

our  intimates,  our  friends,  and  our  benefactors,  that  this  ques- 


388  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL   SCIENCE.  [§  207. 

tion  is  chiefly  concerned.  This  being  true,  the  question  takes 
this  form  :  Does  the  duty  of  benevolence  permit  and  require  the 
affections  to  inspire  and  regulate  the  special  duties  of  man  to 
man  ?  and,  if  so,  does  it  permit  and  require  this,  without  limita- 
tion or  exception  ? 
In  answer  to  this  question,  we  would  reply :  It  unquestionably 

^    ^^  does,  but  with  now  and  then  an  exception.     No  man 

On  the  con-  ' 

trary,  it  In-  wiU  qucstion  that  men  would  be  happier  and  better, 
8P  res  t  em.  ^qj.q  ^jjg  natural  or  family  affections  stronger  and 
more  controlling  than  they  are ;  were  parental  and  filial  and 
conjugal  love  more  carefully  and  tenderly  cherished,  and  more 
frequently  yielded  to.  We  also  assume  that  the  re-acting  in- 
fluence of  these  affections,  and  the  expression  of  them  upon  the 
acts  and  habits,  should  be  a  larger  determining  force  than  they 
usually  are  in  settling  questions  of  duty.  But,  while  a  rational 
benevolence  thus  exalts  the  impulses  of  kindred  and  gratitude 
and  friendship  into  controlling  elements  of  character  and  con- 
duct, it  does  not  recognize  any  one  or  all  of  these  affections  as 
supreme  in  every  conceivable  case.  Practically  to  assume  this 
would  be  impossible,  for  the  reason  that  the  so-called  natural 
impulses  are  themselves  so  conflicting  and  indeterminate  as  to 
be  incapable  of  rigid  formulation,  or  the  adjustment  of  the 
relative  moral  force  of  each  to  every  possible  variety  of  circum- 
stances. We  cannot,  if  we  would,  yield  to  our  feelings,  or  take 
our  feelings  as  a  guide.  To  attempt  this  theoretically,  would 
give  us  what  in  the  bad  —  yet  a  very  intelligible  —  sense  is 
a  sentimental  morality,  i.e.,  a  morality  inspired  and  moulded 
by  feeling  alone ;  and  feeling  as  such  is  confessedly  variable, 
capricious,  unreasoning,  and  unreasonable.  In  practice  and  in 
fact,  the  exercise  of  judgment  in  respect  to  the  place  and  com- 
parative force  of  feeling  is  constantly  called  for ;  and  judgment 
supposes  some  relationships  in  the  feelings  with  respect"  to  one 
another,  and  to  the  common  good  as  requiring  rule  and  subor- 
dination. These  relationships  of  the  feelings  can  only  be  found 
in  their  effects  so  far  as  these  can  be  foreseen  in  both  ordinary 


§208.]  DUTIES  TO  OUR  FELLOW-MEN.  389 

and  extraordinary  circumstances.  The  general  duty  of  benevo- 
lence, which  is  acknowledged  to  be  binding,  requires  us  to  love 
our  neighbor  as  ourselves.  While  it  recognizes  the  value  of 
the  varied  feelings  which  we  naturally  exercise  towards  different 
neighbors,  it  requires  us  to  regulate  them  all,  and  to  yield  to 
them  only  so  far,  and  in  such  a  way,  as  they  will  promote  the 
highest  good  of  all.  * 

§  208.  The  objections  which  we  have  considered 
are  not  infrequently  urged  in   a   popular  form   as  tions  in  a 

-  ,,  popular  form, 

follows  : 

(1)  The  principle  in  question  would  subject  the  decisions  of 

every  question  of   duty  to   the   calculation  of  con- 

•^     ^  ''  (1)  Inrolves 

sequences.     President  Timothy  Dwight  ( TJieology,   the  caicuia- 
sermon  xcix.)  accepts  benevolence  as  the  compre-  t»oiiof  con- 

^  ^  ^  sequences. 

hensive  law  of  special  duties  to  man,  but  rejects 
the  corollary  that  it  involves  the  calculation  of  consequences. 
According  to  this  rule,  he  urges  in  objection,  we  are  permitted 
to  perform  no  action  till  we  have  forecasted  its  probable  results, 
both  near  and  remote,  as  compared  with  every  other.  To  do 
this,  even  when  these  results  are  obvious,  must  involve  us  in 
constant  perplexity  and  delay.  When  these  consequences  are 
remote  and  uncertain,  the  perplexity  and  delay  must  be  over- 
whelming. The  consequences  of  most  of  our  actions,  we  are 
often  unable  to  foresee.  Even  when  we  can  foresee  them, 
we  cannot  always  estimate  their  relative  importance.  The 
rule  proposed,  he  reasons,  must  therefore  be  either  useless 
or  impracticable. 

To  these  objections  we  reply,  that  the  rule  by  no  means 
subjects  every  question  of  duty  to  an  estimate  of 
consequences.  It  does  this  only  in  cases  that  ap- 
pear to  be  exceptional ;  i.e.,  in  cases  where  deviations  from 
the  ordinary  and  obvious  working  of  the  general  rule  force 
themselves  upon  our  notice.  General  rules  of  duty  are  sug- 
gested by  the  natural  relationships  and  affections ;  and  these 
are  to  be  promptly  and  completely  obeyed,  unless  some  excep- 


390  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL  SCIENCE.  [§  208. 

tion  is  suggested.  In  every  such  ease,  the  reason  for  the 
exception  is  shown  to  be  also  the  reason  for  the  rule.  Ordi- 
narily we  do  not  recognize  the  reason  for  our  actions :  we 
obey  the  impulses  of  feeling,  the  guidance  of  domestic  and 
social  relationships,  or  those  accepted  maxims  of  duty  which 
are  founded  on  the  collected  experiences  of  life.  Our  faith  in 
these  indications  and  ordinances  of  nature,  including  in  nature 
man  as  individual  and  social,  justifies  us  in  trusting  and  im- 
plicitly obeying  these  rules  when  no  occasion  is  indicated  for 
deviating  from  them.  But  whenever  we  clearly  see  that  the 
consequences  of  obedience  must  be  evil,  and  evil  only,  and  that 
duty  requires  us  to  resist  and  overcome  the  natural  affections 
and  impulses,  we  are  compelled  to  find  an  exception  to  what 
would  otherwise  be  accepted  as  the  ordinary  rule  of  duty.  The 
common  sense  and  the  common  practice  of  all  mankind  justify 
such  exceptions,  even  though  their  ethical  theories  fail  to  pro- 
vide for  or  to  enforce  them. 

(2)  The  kindred  objection,  that  this  doctrine  makes  morality 
(2)  That  It  shifting  and  uncertain,  is  met  by  the  consideration, 
makes  mo-      first,  that,  in  the  sphere  of  the  intentions,  the  rules 

rality  shift-         ^  •,. 

lug  and  of  morality  never  change  ;  and,  second,  that  in  the 

uncertain.  domain  of  action,  as  contrasted  with  that  of  inten- 
tion, ethical  rules  must  necessarily  be  the  products  of  induction 
rather  than  of  intuition,  and  consequently  must  admit  of  more 
or  fewer  exceptions.  This  necessity  is  attended  by  many  ad- 
vantages ;  conspicuously  by  this,  that  the  intellect  is  constantly 
sharpened,  and  the  honesty  of  the  motives  is  constantly  tested, 
by  the  necessity  of  determining  what  we  ought  to  do,  as  well  as 
of  deciding  whether  we  are  willing  to  do  as  we  ought.  The 
moral  discipline  may  be  as  salutary  which  is  involved  in  the 
decision  by  the  intellect  of  a  question  of  duty,  as  that  which  is 
required  for  compliance  by  the  will  with  the  verdict  when  it 
is  rendered. 

A  sagacious  observer  of  human  character  and  conduct,  during 
a  long  life,  once  observed  as  the  result  of  his  experience,  that 


§209.]  DUTIES  TO  OUB  FELLOW-MEN.  391 

the  moral  honesty  and  responsibility  of  men  are  quite  as  fre- 
quently and  as  strikingly  tested  by  the  use  of  their  intellect  in 
determining  questions  of  duty  as  by  their  conduct. 

(3)  The  same  objection  is  urged  in  another  phrase,  that  the 
principle  involved  is  that  known  as  the  greatest  hap- 

'■  ^  "^  (3)  It  is  the 

piness  of  the  greatest  number^  which  as  a  theory  of  doctrine  of 
action  and  feeling  is  narrow  in  its  range,  and  low  ***®  greatest 

"  °   '  happiness  of 

in  its  tendency.  To  this  we  reply,  that  the  rule  is  the  greatest 
confessedly  a  rule  for  the  outward  conduct,  and  for  *^"*" 
this  only ;  that  it  is  practical  and  not  ideal*  objective  and  not 
subjective.  It  supposes  love  as  will  and  love  as  feeling  to 
control  and  animate  the  disposition  and  inner  man  :  it  professes 
to  be  a  rule  for  the  outward  actions,  and  only  so  far  as  these 
concern  other  men.  For  such  actions,  no  better  rule  can  pos- 
sibly be  conceived  than  the  rule  to  contribute  to  the  utmost  of 
their  well-being.  "We  are  shut  up  to  the  alternative  between  pru- 
dence and  common-sense  as  our  guide  in  directing  our  practical 
benevolence,  and  a  romantic  sentimentalism  which  must  often 
assume  the  air  of  dogmatic  positiveness.  The  experiences  of 
life  teach  men,  often  at  a  painful  cost,  that  benevolent  impulses, 
uncontrolled  by  self -controlling  prudence  and  wise  discretion, 
are  often  disappointing  to  the  subject,  and  cruel  to  the  object 
on  which  they  waste  their  love  and  misapply  their  beneficence. 
We  cannot  be  too  firmly  convinced,  nor  too  carefully  remember, 
that,  while  benevolence  in  intention  is  invariably  inspired  by 
God,  beneficence  in  act  must  always  be  directed  and  often  re- 
strained by  man,  in  the  exercise  of  a  wise  forecast  concerning 
the  tendencies  and  effects  of  what  we  say  or  do. 

§  209.  Two  tendencies  seem  at  present  to  be  contending  for  the  mastery 
in  the  theories  and  tlie  practices  of  men  with  respect  to  public 

and  private  beneficence;  viz.,  the  tendency  on  the  one  hand  *gmig„(,igg 

to  individual   self-reliance   and  independence,   and  on  the  are  now 

other  towards   excessive   dependence  on  one's  fellow-raen  struggling 

for  either  individual  aid   or  social  co-operation.     The  first  ^^^  *^*® 
would  prevent  the  individual  from  imparting  sympathy  or 


mastery. 


aid  to  his  fellow,  and  also  cut  him  off  from  gratitude  in  receiving  either:  the 


392  ELEMENTS  OF  MOBAL  SCIENCE.  [§  210. 

second  would  make  him  dependent,  in  every  action  and  every  interest,  npon 
society  for  whatever  he  needs.  The  one  ignores  or  disdains  the  necessity 
and  the  privilege  of  dependence  on  others  for  help  and  sympathy,  and 
the  correlate  dnty  of  according  both  to  others  :  the  other  would  absorb  the 
individual  in  the  community,  and  subject  him  to  its  control,  by  some  species 
of  socialistic  or  communistic  arrangement.  The  one,  when  carried  to  an 
extreme,  becomes  hard,  repulsive,  unsocial,  and  inhuman:  the  other  makes 
the  individual  weak,  eflfeminate,  and  impotent.  The  two  can  be  recon- 
ciled and  satisfied  by  that  conception  of  benevolence  which  in  its  inner 
spirit  is  thoroughly  disinterested,  yet  regulates  its  outward  acts  by  a  regard 
to  their  useful  consequences  as  estimated  by  the  practical  wisdom  of  com- 
mon sense,  and  the  instructed  judgments  of  social  science. 

§  210.  The  conclusions  which  we  have  reached 
doctrine  of  ™^y  ^  briefly  recapitulated  in  the  following  sum- 
moral  mary :  — 

beneyolence. 

The  obligation  to  love  our  fellow-men  as  ourselves 

includes   all  who  belong  to  the  race,  united,  as  they  are,  by 

many  relations  which  are  common  to  them  all.    This 

coinnion  common  relationship  is  expressed  by  the  proposi- 

natureand      ^\q^   ^ji^t  they   posscss   a   common    nature.      This 

sympathy. 

common  nature,  in  every  one  of  its  relationships, 
appeals  to,  and  tends  to  awaken,  a  common  sympathy  or  affec- 
tion in  every  human  being.  The  capacity  for  this  natural 
sympathy  is  the  ground  of  the  obligation  which  impels  and 
commands  every  man  to  accord  to  others  his  voluntary  love. 
On  these  grounds  we  are  required  to  love  all  men  alike.  Hence 
the  general  obligation  or  duty  to  love  man  as  man. 

But  besides  this  common  relationship  and  its  answering  affec- 
tion, which  impel  and  direct  to  the  duties  and  affec- 

AIro  special  '  '^ 

relation-  tions  of  the  inner  man,  our  fellow-men  are  united 
^  * *****  to  us  by  various  special  relationships,  each  of  which 

appeals  to  our  benevolent  love,  and  affords  an  opportunity  and 
enforces  the  obligation  for  special  forms  of  feeling  and  action. 
First  of  all,  there  are  certain  permanent  and  universal  condi- 
tions of  human  welfare  which  our  benevolent  love  requires  us 
to  recognize  and  respect,  and  accord  to  all  mankind.  Such  are 
the  possession  and  security  of  separate  property,  tlie  independent 


§211.]  DUTIES  TO  OUE  FELLOW-MEN.  393 

control  of  one*s  actions  and  person,  and  the  continuance  of  life. 
These  blessings  are  not  only  desired  by  every  man,  but  can  be 
enforced  as  moral  claims.  These  claims  are  so  imperative,  and 
so  readily  responded  to,  as  to  justify  their  being  called  his  nat- 
ural rights  (cf.  §  216).  These  rights  are  universally  recognized 
and  responded  to  by  every  man  who  loves  his  neighbor.  There 
is  also  a  variety  of  special  relationships  which  include  a  greater 
or  smaller  number  of  individuals,  each  of  which  appeals  to  a 
special  and  peculiar  emotion  which  is  either  original  and  simple, 
or,  if  derived  and  complex,  is  certain  to  come  into  existence 
under  the  ordinary  conditions  of  human  life.  For  this  reason, 
these  relationships  and  affections  are  designated  as  natural  and 
human.  Each  of  these  relationships  and  affections  is  the 
ground  of  special  duties  of  feeling  and  action.  Next,  every 
man  is  connected  with  a  few  individuals  of  his  race  by  the 
relationships  of  the  family,  which  evoke  the  so-called  natural 
affections,  and  enforce  the  several  duties  of  parents  and  chil- 
dren, husband  and  wife,  brother  and  sister,  etc.  With  others, 
and  usually  with  many  more,  we  are  connected  by  the  ties  of 
gratitude  and  resentment,  of  friendship  and  repugnance,  with 
the  duties  which  attend  them.  With  others  we  are  united  by 
membership  in  an  organized  community,  pre-eminently  in  the 
state,  or  other  less  important  and  more  artificial  organizations. 
To  others  we  are  bound  by  the  temporary  and  occasional  rela- 
tions of  dependence  and  trust  in  communicating  information, 
imparting  help,  and  responding  to  confidence,  such  as  impose 
the  obligations  to  veracit3^  and  integrity.  In  this  way  arise  the 
various  special  duties  between  man  and  man,  which  are  more 
or  less  obvious  in  their  import,  and  more  or  less  imperative  in 
their  claims  and  authority.  Foundation 

§  211.  The  special  as  contrasted  with  the  general  of  special  as 

contrasted 

duties  which  we  owe  to  our  fellow-men  are  deter-  with  general 
mined  by  these  special  relations  and  affections.     As  ^"***^- 
has  already  been  observed,  some  of  these  relations  are  perma- 
nent and  natural,  others  are  transient  and  artificial.     Some  are 


394  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL   SCIENCE.  [§  211. 

constant  in  their  authority,  and  can  never  be  overlooked 
or  neglected:  others  are  variable  in  their  claims,  at  one  time 
asserting  supremacy,  and  ^at  another  yielding  to  superior 
demands.  Some  admit  and  enforce  general  rules,  with  few  or 
no  exceptions  in  favor  of  the  rival  claims  of  other  rela- 
tionships :  others  may  be  variously  interpreted  according  to 
conflicting  or  conspiring  demands.  In  every  case  of  apparent 
conflict,  the  appeal  is  to  the  supreme  law  of  love  to  man  as 
man ;  and  this,  whether  one  claim  is  to  yield  to  another,  or 
whether  both  are  to  be  set  aside  by  the  demands  of  a  superior 
duty.  That  which  is  supreme  above  all  is  the  duty  of  love,  — 
to  man  as  man,  we  ordinarily  say ;  but,  as  we  more  care- 
fully express  it,  the  duty  voluntarily  to  desire  the  highest 
good  of  all  men. 

This  general  obligation  enforces  the  duties  indicated  by  these 
special  relationships,  and  by  the  affections  which  are  correlated 
to  them.  No  one  of  these  relationships  as  such,  nor  the  affec- 
tions which  belong  to  any,  are  of  themselves  final.  The  moral 
law  does  not  say,  nor  would  it  satisfy  us  if  it  did  say,  that  the 
parental  or  brotherly  or  neighborly  relation  is  always  to  be 
supreme,  or  that  certain  affections  or  emotions  should  uniformly 
take  precedence  of  all  others.  In  ordinary  cases,  they  may  be 
accepted  implicitly  as  supreme,  and  followed  as  trustworthy 
guides,  because  they  are  enforced  by  the  general  law  of  love. 
It  is,  however,  only  because  they  are  thus  enforced,  that  they 
are  accepted  as  moral  laws :  that  is,  we  accept  these  relation- 
ships and  affections  as  laws  of  feeling  and  conduct,  because 
they  indicate  the  sanction  of  the  supreme  law. 

The  same  law  which  enforces  these  relationships  and  affec- 
tions by  rules,  adjusts  their  claims  when  they  seem  to  conflict 
with  one  another.  When  the  most  sacred  of  relationships  and 
the  most  hallowed  affections  would  draw  or  drive  us  in  different 
directions,  we  must  appeal  to  a  higher  tribunal  and  a  superior 
law.  Such  a  law  we  can  find  only  in  the  comprehensive  law 
of  love  to  man  as  man. 


§  212.]  DUTIES  TO  OUR  FELLOW-MEN.  395 

§  212.  It  sHould  never  be  forgotten,  that,  in  forming  and  interpreting 
these  special  rules  of  duty,  we  not  only  may,  but  we  must, 
assume  that  the  universe  of  related  and  moral  beings  is  con-   assumBtion 
stituted  and  maintained  in  the  interests  of  rational  and  moral    in  respect 
order,  and  that  the  general  and  special  laws  which  control    to  natural 
each  and  all  must  act  in  harmony.    It  is  an  axiom  of  specula-    harmony  of 
tive  and  physical  science,  that  the  general  and  special  forces 
of  the  universe  act  in  unison,  and  that  the  separate  action  of  any  one 
tends  to  the  harmony  of  the  whole,  even  when  it  seems  to  conflict  with  and 
counteract  it.    Any  science  of  the  true  — i.e.,  the  science  of  the  laws  and  re- 
lations of  nature  and  of  spirit  —  would  be  impossible  without  this  assumj)- 
tion.    The  same  is  true  of  ethical  science,  or  the  science  of  duty  and  the 
good.    We  not  only  may,  but  we  must,  assume  that  the  impulses  and 
affections  which  impel  to  action  are  fitted  and  intended  for  harmonious 
and  concurrent  activity  with  one  another,  and  with  the  forces  and  laws 
which  control  and  adjust  the  entire  system.    It  is  not  surprising,  and  it 
should  occasion  no  offence,  that  ethical  science  should  require  the  same 
axioms  in  respect  to  the  order  and  harmony  of  the  universe,  which  physics, 
and,  indeed,  every  other  science,  assumes  and  demands. 


396  ELEMENTb  OF  MORAL  SCIENCE.  [§  213. 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

THE  DOCTRINE  OF  RIGHTS. 

§  213.  Following  the  classification  we  have  made,  we  treat, 
Recapit-  first,  of  the  dutics  which  man  owes  to  his  fellow-man 

as  man.  The  grounds  of  these  duties  have  already 
been  stated  to  be  :  Our  fellow-men  have  a  nature  like  our  own  ; 
this  nature  appeals  to  our  responsive  sympathies,  and  thus 
reveals  the  end  and  law  of  our  voluntary  activities.  These 
relations  and  sympathies  are  also  supposed  to  be  universal  to 
the  human  race.  They  connect  each  individual  man  with  every 
one  of  his  kind,  and  impel  to  benevolent  feeling  and  beneficent 
action  to  all.  We  need  not  discuss  the  question,  whether  the 
intelligent  apprehension  of  this  common  relationship  is  originally 
preceded  by,  or  developed  from,  a  special  instinct,  which,  as  in 
the  case  of  many  animals,  draws  man  to  his  kind.  Whether 
there  is  or  is  not  such  an  instinct,  it  cannot  be  made  the  ground 
of  a  duty  or  moral  claim  until  it  is  recognized  by  the  intellect 
as  imposing  moral  obligation.  We  can  recognize  acts  or  feel- 
ings as  duties  to  our  fellow-men,  only  so  far  as  we  intelligently 
discern  the  common  relationship  between  ourselves  and  them, 
which  appeals  to  our  benevolent  feelings  as  a  condition  of 
common  good. 

We  may  safely  assume,  that,  so  soon  as  man  awakes  to  self- 
consciousness,  he  awakes  to  the  fact  that  he  is  a 
himself, from  i^iember  of  a  community  of  his  fellows,  and  that 
the  first,  in     society  expresses  and  enforces  its  claims  to  some 

society. 

response  of  duty.  So  soon  as  any  one  says  /  to 
himself,  by  the  self-conscious  recognition  of  his  own  person- 


§  213.]  THE  DOCTRINE  OF  RIGHTS.  397 

ality,  he  says  thou  to  his  neighbor,  with  as  distinct  a  recogni- 
tion of  a  similar  personality  in  him.     He  cannot  do 

.    .  .J  and  thou. 

either  without  recognizing  the  common  nature  which 
belongs  to  both.  In  this  sense,  it  is  true  that  man  is  born  in 
society ;  and,  as  soon  as  he  awakes  to  an  intelligent  apprehen- 
sion of  the  fact  and  its  import,  he  discerns  that  he  is  a  "  po- 
litical animal,"  existing  in  a  social  organism.  This  community 
is  more  or  less  definitely  organized.  The  constituent  elements 
of  this  social  organism  are  individual  men.  Its  connecting 
bonds  are  the  universal  relationships  which  are  involved  in  their 
common  nature.  The  parts  and  the  whole  are  readily  discerned 
to  be  mutually  dependent  and  related.  They  exist  and  act  by 
and  for  one  another,  in  the  intentions  of  nature,  and  by  their 
actual  co-operation.  These  relationships  are  apprehended  first 
in  their  individual  exemplification,  and  subsequently  affirmed  in 
propositions  which  are  more  or  less  generalized  and  abstract. 
It  may  not  even  be  true  that  man  has  first  a  distinct  appre- 
hension of  the  ego,  before  he  apprehends  his  alter  ego.  It  is 
probable,  that,  inasmuch  as  the  thou  is  suggested  to  the  atten- 
tion by  sensible  signs  and  physical  acts,  our  fellow-men  and 
our  relations  to  our  fellow-men  are  sooner  recognized  as  motives 
to  action  than  ourselves  and  our  relations  to  ourselves.  If  this 
be  so,  it  is  eminently  true,  unus  homo  nullus  homo.  Whether 
it  be  true,  or  no,  it  cannot  be  denied  that  a  man  separated  from 
his  kind  is  inconceivable  in  conception  and  impossible  in  fact. 
Out  of  society  he  could  neither  be  physically  born,  nor  exist 
after  he  was  born.  Sympathetically,  also,  he  is  as  truly  related 
to  his  fellows  by  his  capacity  to  receive  and  to  give,  —  the  one 
involving  the  other,  —  and  by  the  resistless  impulses  and  the 
acknowledged  obligations  to  both.  These  relations,  growing 
out  of  our  common  nature  as  social  beings,  make  it  possible 
that  men  should  be  dependent  upon  one  another,  and  should 
aid  one  another  as  necessary  conditions  of  the  well-being  of 
each  and  of  all.  So  far  as  this  is  possible,  the  law  of  duty 
commands  that  these  conditions  of  well-being  shall  be  conceded 


398  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL  SCIENCE.  [§  214. 

and  secured  by  each  and  every  man  to  all  his  fellow-men,  in  all 
conceivable  circumstances.  No  man  can  morally  love  his  fellow- 
man  who  does  not  in  his  heart  accord  to  him  every  good  which 
the  first  can  possibly  impart,  and  which  the  second  can  receive. 
§  214.  Moreover,  every  such  good  which  one  man  is  morally 
„     ,  ,  ,        bound  to  impart  to  his  fellow-men  can  be  morally 

Moral  claims,  *■  -^ 

how  related  claimed  by  the  second  of  the  first.  The  second  can 
demand  it  of  the  first  by  an  appeal  to  his  conscious- 
ness, to  the  consenting  consciences  of  all  moral  beings,  and  to 
the  judgment  and  authority  of  God.  It  follows,  that  every 
duty  owed  by  A  to  B  becomes,  by  the  very  fact,  the  matter  of 
a  moral  claim  from  B  upon  A.  It  being  presumed  that  the 
unbiased  consciences  of  men  in  general  unite  with  B,  his  de- 
mand is  also  recognized  as  a  universal  or  common  moral  claim. 
Ethically  considered^  silcJi  moral  claims  are  rights. 

These  moral  claims  are  more  or  less  indeterminate  in  their 
character,  and  variable  in  their  sacredness.  There  are  a  few, 
however,  which  are  recognized  as  universal  in  their  application 
and  unconditioned  in  their  enforcement.  These  are  called  the 
natural  rights  of  men,  inasmuch  as  the  good  in  question  is 
required  by  all  men  as  the  condition  of  their  true  well-being, 
and  is  capable  of  being  always  given,  at  least,  by  the  will  of 
each  and  all.  This  term  derives  its  significance  from  the  fact, 
that  the  good  in  question,  as  life  or  liberty,  is  required  by  the 
nature  of  man  as  an  individual  and  a  member  of  society,  as  a 
condition  of  the  well-being  of  every  individual.  Its  sacredness 
and  authority  are  derived  from  the  fact,  that  the  man  whose 
welfare  it  immediately  concerns  may  claim  it  from  his  fellow 
by  an  appeal  to  his  consenting  conscience,  and  that  to  this 
appeal  his  fellow-men  may  be  presumed  invariably  to  respond. 

The  question  has  been  much  debated,  whether  the  concept  of  duty 
Relation  of  ^^  founded  on  the  concept  of  right,  or  that  of  right  is 
duties  to  founded  on  the  concept  of  duty.    If  our  analysis  of  these 

riglits,  and  concepts  is  correct,  it  adjusts  this  question  as  follows : 
vice  versa.  rpj^^  nature  of  man  involves  and  requires  certain  conditions 
of  his  true  well-being.     These  conditions  are  needful  for  the  realization 


§  214.]  THE  DOCTRINE  OF  RIGHTS.  399 

of  the  ends  of  his  existence,  or  his  well-being,  —  such  as  the  security  of  life, 
liberty  of  person  and  property.  Unless  this  assumption  of  what  man  is, 
and  requires  for  his  well-being,  be  made  and  conceded,  the  conception  of  a 
right  has  no  meaning.  Unless  this  assumption  is  true,  the  conception  of 
a  right  is  valid  neither  in  logic  nor  in  fact.  But  the  necessity  or  supreme 
importance  of  the  good  does  not  complete  the  significance  of  the  concept 
as  a  matter  of  right,  nor  does  it  furnish  its  most  important  element.  In 
order  to  give  it  its  complete  significance,  and  to  impart  to  it  its  special 
sacredness  and  authority,  man's  moral  nature  must  be  introduced,  as  de- 
manding, on  the  part  of  the  recipient,  in  the  name  of  duty  and  conscience, 
that  the  condition  required  be  given;  and  consenting,  on  the  part  of  the 
giver,  that  it  be  not  withheld.  In  other  words,  it  is  not  till  the  relation  of 
duty  is  introduced,  that  the  conception  of  right  attains  its  complete  and  its 
specially  sacred  meaning. 

"  Je  n'ai  I'idee  du  droit  d'autrui  que  parce  que  je  connais  que  j'ai  moi- 
meme  des  droits  ;  et  je  ne  connais  que  j'ai  des  droits  que  parce  que  je  con- 
nais auparavant  que  j'ai  des  devoirs.  En  effet  je  consols  primitivement 
I'obligation  de  developper  mon  activite  selon  une  certaine  loi,  de  tendre 
vers  un  certain  but,  qui  est  le  bien,  ou  la  perfection. 

**  Cette  obligation  etant  absolue,  je  consols  en  meme  temps  que  je  dois 
disposer  de  tons  les  moyens  sans  lesquels  il  me  serait  impossible  de  me 
developper  conformement  a  la  loi.  Ces  conditions  sont  essentiellement 
celles  qui  constituent  ma  personnalite,  k  savoir  ma  »aison  et  ma  liberte ; 
c'est  la  mon  droit;  et  ce  droit,  je  le  con9ois  comme  une  consequence 
necessaire  de  mon  devoir. 

"  Ce  que  j'appelle  mon  droit,  c'est  done  en  definition  la  possibilite  d'ac- 
comi)lir  mon  devoir,  et  de  meme  la  possibilite  pour  mon  semblable  d'accom- 
plir  son  devoir,  j'appelle  son  droit."  —  L.  Cabrau,  La  Fhilosophie  Utilitaire, 
2me  partie,  livre  1,  chap.  x. 

Briefly  expressed,  the  relation  of  the  conception  of  duty  to 
right  might  be  thus  stated :  Formally  conceived,  the  right 
depends  on  duty,  inasmuch  as  separate  from  moral  relations 
it  would  have  no  authority ;  materially  viewed,  duty  supposes 
certain  fixed  conditions  of  human  well-being,  founded  in  the 
nature  of  man,  which  are  therefore  his  natural  rights. 

Moreover,  every  right  supposes  two  parties,  —  the  person  in 
whom  the  right  inheres,  or  who  may  assert  and  defend  it  for 
himself ;  and  the  person  from  whom  the  first  demands  conces- 
sion or  security.  The  person  in  either  case  may  be  one  or 
many,  single  or  organized ;  as  when  an  individual  may  demand 


400  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL   SCIENCE.  [§  215. 

security  of  life  or  property  from  a  single  man,  or  from  the 
entire  community,  —  as  he  may  appeal  to  the  assailant  who 
would  rob  or  murder  him,  or  appeal  from  him  to  a  crowd  of 
bystanders,  or  to  the  community  organized  as  the  state. 

§  215.  Ethically  considered,  a  right  is   synonymous  with  a 
„  ,   .      .     moral  claim  :  the  two  are  interchangeable.     In  the 

Belation  of  *= 

moral  claims  court  of  Conscience,  the  two  are  equally  valid  and 
to  duties.  equally  sacred.  Not  so  in  the  ordinary  usage  of 
life,  or  in  the  technical  signification  of  the  terms.  Technically 
conceived,  however,  rights,  both  in  ethics  and  jurisprudence, 
are  limited  to  external  acts,  the  acts  by  which  benevolent  feel- 
ing is  generally  expressed  and  interpreted.  We  sometimes  say, 
indeed,  that  a  man  has  a  right  to  affections,  as  to  the  gratitude, 
love,  and  confidence  of  his  friend  or  child  or  wife ;  but  it  is 
only  in  the  sense  of  a  moral  claim. 

The  term  is  thus  limited,  for  the  reason  that  the  claim  in 
question  cannot  be  defined  except  by  those  acts 
moral  claims  which  are  supposcd  to  be  its  appropriate  effects  or 
are  r  g  ts.  manifestations,  nor  can  it  be  enforced  except  by 
penaltie*s  which  are  proportioned  to  the  external  effects  of  loss 
or  injury.  Not  only  must  the  claim  respect  an  external  action, 
but  the  action  must  concern  a  good  or  a  means  of  good  which 
is  universally  acknowledged  to  be  essential  to  human  welfare. 
So  soon  as  it  is  thus  acknowledged,  it  is  presumed  to  be 
adapted  and  intended  for  all  mankind  in  the  economy  and 
operations  of  nature.  If  the  divine  will  or  authority  can  be 
inferred  from  such  a  natural  adaptation,  the  divine  will  can  be 
inferred  as  upholding  a  claim  to  such  a  blessing  as  this.  Prom- 
inent among  these  goods  are  /(/e,  property^  and  personal  liberty 
in  enjoyment  and  security.  These  are  invariably  acknowledged 
to  be  the  elements  and  conditions  of  man's  well-being  under  all 
ordinary  circumstances.  For  this  reason,  every  man  claims 
each  one  of  these  blessings  from  his  fellow-men,  by  an  appeal 
to  their  consciences  ;  and  to  this  claim  every  man  responds  by 
the  assent  of  his  individual  conscience. 


§  216.]  THE  DOCTRINE  OF  EIGHTS.  401 

§  216.  The  extent  and  authority  of  these  rights  is  empha- 
sized by  the  adjectives  natural^  universal^  and  in-  Ri„i,tg  ^^t- 
alienable.  They  are  called  natural,  because  they  "»"»''  «niver- 
are  founded  in  the  natural  capacities  and  require-  inalienable, 
ments  of  all  human  beings,  and  are  entirely  iude-  ^^♦"''ai' 
pendent  of  any  artificial  or  changing  capacities  or  circum- 
stances. They  spring  directly  from  the  constitution .  of  man 
as  man ;  from  his  entire  nature,  be  it  observed,  as  personal, 
social,  sympathetic,  and  moral.  They  are  called  suqh  in  con- 
trast with  those  which  are  artificial,  limited,  temporary,  and 
adventitious  ;  such  as  are  constituted  by  statutes  which  may  be 
repealed,  by  fashions  which  may  change,  by  institutions  which 
may  be  abandoned,  by  relationships  which  may  be  dissolved, 
and  yet  which,  while  they  exist,  may  enforce  sacred  obligations 
of  duty.  The  nature  from  which  they  spring,  and  on  ivhich  they 
are  founded,  is  human  nature. 

It  follows,  that  they  can  be  affirmed  of  man  only  in  his  normal  condi- 
tion or  development,  and  under  circumstances  which  are  essential  to  his 
physical  and  psychical  activity.  Idiocy,  insanity,  and  imbecility  greatly 
modify  our  practical  appreciation  of  the  fundamental  principles  of  duty 
and  right,  if  they  do  not  the  statement  of  our  theories.  Every  safe  and 
trustworthy  theory  supposes  that  these  rights  inhere  only  in  men  who 
are  normally  constituted  and  developed.  Any  deviation  from  this  con- 
dition must  be  provided  for  by  a  serious  exception  to  any  theory,  or  by 
principles  which  are  too  broad  and  general  to  be  of  any  jiractical  use  If, 
for  example,  our  fellow-men  are  in  condition  and  development  but  little 
superior  to  animals,  —  if  they  are  practically  animals,  and  only  potentially 
men,  —  my  judgment  in  respect  to  their  rights,  so  far  as  they  appeal  to 
myself  and  my  duties  towards  them,  must  recognize  them  as  combining 
the  animal  and  the  man  in  one  individuality,  and  as  being  exceptional  in 
their  condition  and  claims. 

These  rights  are  also  universal.  Being  derived  from  the 
nature  of  man,  they  extend  as  widely  as  universal 

.  Universal. 

manhood.     They  are  limited  to  no  race,  color,  or 
citizenship,  but  are  co-extensive  with  the  human  family.    Being 
founded   on   an   assumed   similarity  or  community  of   endow- 
ments,   and   sanctioned    and   consecrated   by   that   conscience 


402  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL   SCIENCE.  [§  216. 

which  makes  the  whole  world  kin,  they  include  as  receivers  and 
givers  all  those  to  whom  the  capacity  of  being  blessed  and  the 
obligation  to  impart  a  blessing  can  reach.  By  this  is  not 
intended  that  every  member  of  the  human  race,  under  all  con- 
ceivable circumstances,  is  entitled  to  the  actual  security  or 
enjoyment  of  these  so-called  universal  rights.  Some  men  may 
forfeit  their  claims  by  crime ;  others  may  be  debarred  the 
actual  enjoyment  of  the  blessings  in  their  gift,  under  the  press- 
ure of  circumstances  that  refuse  them  a  developed  and  normal 
manhood.  It  is  intended,  however,  that,  so  far  as  a  common 
manhood  is  concerned,  it  avails  for  all  alike,  whether  these 
rights  are  claimed  or  waived ;  and  that  the  claim  is  always 
responded  to  at  the  court  of  conscience  and  of  unperveited 
public  opinion. 

These  rights  are   also   inalienable.     They  are   incapable   of 
being  rightfully  parted  with  by  their  possessor,  or 

Inalienable.      ,     .  ,  /.  ,  .       ,  «.  i 

being  taken  away  from  him  by  any  act  of  personal 
violence  or  arbitrary  decree.  By  this  is  not  intended  that  a 
man  may  not  expose  himself  to  certain  death  to  save  the  life  of 
his  friend  or  to  defend  his  country,  or  voluntarily  subject  him- 
self to  the  external  conditions  of  personal  slavery  for  benevo- 
lent or  moral  ends,  or  from  similar  motives  abandon  all  private 
ownership  of  property,  so  far  as  this  is  possible.  It  is  in- 
tended, however,  that  no  act  of  an  individual  man  or  of  society 
can  deprive  a  single  individual  of  any  of  these  descriptions  of 
rights,  except  for  reasons  or  by  processes  which  apply  to  all 
men  alike. 

This  inalienability  applies  to  both  parties,  the  holder  and  the 
supposed  invader  of  the  rights.  More  frequently  it  supposes  a 
violent  invasion  or  interference  on  the  part  of  an  organized 
government  or  interest.  In  such  a  case,  the  term  signifies  that 
the  right  is  such  that  it  cannot  be  rightfully  taken  from  any 
man,  except  for  crime,  and  l)y  due  process  of  law,  or  in  ex- 
treme necessity  and  for  a  limited  period,  as  in  certain  cases 
for  the  necessities  of  government,  as  military  service,  etc.     If 


§  217.]  THE  DOCTRINE  OF  RIGHTS,  403 

it  concerns  the  duty  of  the  person  in  whom  the  right  inheres,  it 
asserts  that  no  man  can  lawfully  divest  himself  of  the  moral 
authority  to  re-assert  and  resume  the  right.  For  example,  let 
it  be  granted  that  a  man  might  lawfully  sacrifice  or  barter  his 
life  for  the  good  of  others,  or  take  a  vow  of  complete  and 
perpetual  poverty,  or  dispossess  himself  of  his  personal  liberty, 
as  certain  missionaries  are  said  to  have  allowed  themselves  to 
be  sold  as  slaves  in  order  to  preach  the  gospel  more  effectively. 
Every  such  act  is  itself  so  far  immoral,  or  un-moral,  that  it 
can  permanently  bind  no  man's  conscience.  No  man  can  right- 
fully permanently  part  with  the  conditions  of  good  which  are 
so  obviously  essential  to  his  well-being  as  a  man.  The  acts  or 
methods  by  which  he  may  re-assert  the  rights  of  which  he  never 
could  divest  himself,  and  the  new  obligations  which  he  may  have 
contracted  by  his  mistaken  procedure,  may  involve  some  trou- 
blesome questions  of  casuistry  ;  but  these  difficulties  can  never 
justify  any  human  being  in  abandoning  the  essential  conditions 
of  his  ethical  manhood. 

§  217.  It  is  most  important,  also,  to  remember,  that,  while  an  inalienable 
right  can  never  be  rightfully  abandoned  or  alienated  by  its    g^^^j^  rights 
possessor,  the  assertion  of  it  by  external  acts  is  left  to  his   may  not 
judgment,  and  must  depend  on  varying  circumstances.    It  is    always  be 
a  serious  error  to  hold,  that,  because  the  claim  to  such  a  good    ^.sserted. 
can  never  be  rightfully  abandoned  as  a  moral  claim,  the  assertion  of  it  by 
external  acts  can  never  be  waived,  or  controlled  by  varying  circumstances. 
The  argument,  that,  because  all  civil  authority  derives  its  moral  sanction 
from  its  subserviency  to  human  rights,  therefore,  when  it  fails  to  defend  or 
promote  these  rights  for  an  individual  or  a  class,  the  individual  or  class  is 
absolved  from  all  obligations  to  its  authority,  is  at  once  superficial  and 
dangerous  in  the  extreme.    This  question,  however,  concerns  the  conflict 
of  duties,  and  is  discussed  under  the  claims  and  obligations  created  by 
civil  government. 

The  doctrine  of  the  inalienability  of  personal  rights,  when  applied  to 
domestic  slavery  as  it  once  existed  in  the  United  States,  was    „ 
not  infrequently  interpreted  as  authorizing  the  slave  to  assert    nient  of  the 
by  violence  his  right  to   immediate   freedom,  and,   conse-    doctrine  of 
quently,  as  justifying  him  in  resisting  the  civil  authority  in    inalienable 
executing  the  laws  which  made  and  held  him  a  slave.    The    "^ 
argument  was  briefly  thus:  The  master  and  the  State  fouud  their  claims 


404  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL   SCIENCE. 


[§  218. 


upon  the  duty  of  the  slave  to  consent  to  the  alienation  of  his  right  to 
personal  freedom.  But  this  consent  the  slave  can  ne^-er  rightfully  give; 
moreover,  he  is  morally  bound  to  refuse  it:  and  for  these  reasons,  it  was 
argued,  he  may  kill  his  master  or  the  officers  of  the  law,  if  either  should 
attempt  to  restrain  him  or  detain  him  in  slavery.  The  fallacy  of  the  argu- 
ment consists  in  confounding  two  very  different  conceptions.  The  inward 
or  voluntary  consent  to  the  loss  of  liberty  is  one  thing:  the  external  act 
which  may  be  rightfully  employed  to  regain  and  secure  this  right  is  quite 
another.  The  same  doctrine  was  interpreted,  by  a  similar  fallacy,  as  involv- 
ing the  obligation  on  the  part  of  the  master  and  the  community  to  restore 
to  every  slave,  by  an  immediate  and  public  act  of  emancipation,  the 
complete  enjoyment  of  those  personal  rights  which  had  been  unrightfully 
withholden. 

§  218.  Eights  are  often  still  more  specifically  distinguished 
Rijrhtsas  ^^  *^^*  ^^^^  ^^^  Capable  of  clear  definition  and 
capable  of  effective  enforcement  by  the  agencies  of  law  and 
en  orcein  n  .  gQyemment.  Not  infrequently,  rights  have  been 
subdivided  into  perfect  and  imperfect ;  the  perfect,  by  this 
criterion,  being  those  which  are  capable  of  being  defined  and 
tested  and  enforced  by  judicial  tribunals,  and  the  imperfect 
being  incapable  of  such  enforcement.  And  yet  statutes  and 
tribunals  in  theory,  either  formally  or  impliedly,  recognize  the 
principle  that  the  intention  is  an  essential  ethical  element  of 
the  actions  with  which  they  concern  themselves.  They  release 
from  conviction  and  penalty  certain  acts  which  are  harmful 
and  injurious,  when  criminality  of  intention  can  be  disproved. 
They  do  not  even  attempt,  indeed,  to  protect  all  human 
interests.  They  limit  themselves  to  a  very  small  number  of 
duties  and  rights,  —  prominently  those  which  relate  to  life, 
liberty,  and  property.  Even  with  these  limited  interests,  they 
concern  themselves  only  in  a  negative  way,  by  securing  men 
against  interference  on  the  part  of  others  in  certain  obvious 
particulars.  For  this  reason,  writers  of  a  certain  school  con- 
tend that  this  negative  function  is  the  only  function  of  civil 
government ;  that  it  does  not  concern  itself  in  the  least  with 
the  quality  or  character  or  the  happiness  of  its  citizens,  but 
only  defends  their  liberty,  property,  and  life.     This  view  we 


§  218.]  THE  DOCTRINE   OF  RIGHTS.  405 

regard  as  narrow  and  untenable  (§  277).  But  while  we  can- 
not limit  the  functions  of  government  and  of  law  entirely  to 
the  protection  of  these  rights,  and  that  only  in  a  negative  way, 
we  do  not  deny  that  its  most  conspicuous  and  important  func- 
tions lie  within  this  sphere.  While,  from  the 'necessities  of  the 
case,  civil  government  chiefly  concerns  itself  with  the  material 
interests  and  the  external  conduct  of  men,  and  chiefly  in  the 
negative  forms  of  prohibition  and  security,  it  by  no  means 
follows  that  it  does  not  recognize  their  moral  interests  as 
supreme.  It  is,  moreover,  an  unquestioned  fact  in  criminal 
procedure,  —  a  fact  constantly  recognized  in  the  administration 
of  justice,  —  that  it  takes  jurisdiction  of  the  intentions  of  men 
as  interpreted  through  their  actions.  Moreover,  it  invests  the 
rights  which  it  would  secure  and  defend,  with  the  sanctions  of 
the  conscience,  and  uniformly  appeals  to  the  moral  convictions 
and  emotions  as  its  supreme  reliance  in  times  of  pressure  and 
strain. 

For  these  reasons  we  can  neither  limit  rights  in  general,  nor 
inalienable  rights  in  special,  to  those  only  which  civil  govern- 
ment attempts  to  enforce. 


406  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL  SCIENCE.  [§  218. 


CHAPTER  IX. 

DIFFERENT  CLASSES  OF  RIGHTS,  AND  THE  DUTIES  WHICH 
RESPECT  THEM. 

So  much  for  natural  rights  in  general.  We  proceed  next  to 
consider  them  in  detail,  and  the  duties  to  our  fellow-men  which 
respect  them. 

Among  the  natural  rights,  we  consider  first  the  right  to  Ufe^ 

and  the  accompanying  duty  to  respect  the  life  of 

respecting       our  fellow-meu.     Life,  or  the  continuance  of  human 

the  right         existence  in  its  present  form,  is  assumed  to  be  the 
to  life.  '■ 

greatest  of  earthly  blessings.     Every  man  clings  to 

life,  even  when  almost  every  thing  which  makes  life  desirable 

is  taken  away.     So  far  as  each  man  can  judge  for  himself,  life 

seems  to  him  the  greatest  good  which  he  can  claim  or  receive 

from  his  fellow-men. 

This  desire  of  life,  and  the  consequent  request  or  demand 
from  others,  appeal  directly  and  strongly  to  the  responsive 
sympathy  of  all  men.  Moreover,  the  attendants  of  life,  as 
health  and  comfort  and  hope,  give  pleasure  to  all,  and  quicken 
that  generous  and  disinterested  sympathy  with  his  fellow-men 
which  is  presumed  to  be  dormant  or  active  in  every  human 
being.  The  accessories  of  the  extinction  of  life,  as  pain,  help- 
lessness, and  fear,  plead  for  help  and  pity  to  all  whose  life  we 
may  defend  or  prolong  by  our  interference  or  aid. 

The  impulse  to  defend  one's  life  when  it  is  assailed,  and 
Defence  ^^  contend  for  its  continuance  against  the  forces  of 

of  life.  matter  and  the  assaults  of  animals  and  men,  is  an- 

other indication  that  nature  intends  that  life  should  be  protected 


§  219.]  BIFFEBENT  CLASSES  OF  EIGHTS.  407 

and  cared  for  by  each  individual  for  himself,  and  should  be 
aided  by  the  sympathy  and  help  of  his  fellow-men.  Nothing 
save  a  selfish  regard  to  private  interests,  or  a  selfish  indulgence 
of  antagonizing  passion,  could  ever  impel  a  man  to  take  the  life 
of  his  fellow.  For  these  reasons,  we  cannot  hesitate  to  accept 
the  conclusion  that  every  man  is  bound  to  respect  the  moral 
claim  or  right  of  his  fellow  to  his  life,  as  equally  sacred  and 
inviolable  with  his  own  claim  to  his  own. 

§  219.  The  second  universal  condition  of  human  well-being 
is  the  unlimited  control  of  one's  own  actions,  which  is  Right  to  per- 
the  foundation  of  the  right  of  personal  liberty.  It  ^<*^*^  liberty. 
is  essential  to  the  highest  well-being  of  every  man,  that  he 
should  give  expression  and  effect  to  his  purposes  and  feelings  ; 
and,  therefore,  he  may  rightfully  assert  for  himself  entire  free- 
dom in  word  and  deed,  so  far  as  he  does  not  interfere  with  the 
rights  or  interests  of  others.  For  this  reason,  personal  liberty 
becomes  a  universal  right.  By  liberty,  is  not  intended  freedom 
from  the  restraints  of  conscience,  or  the  moral  law  in  any  of  its 
applications,  but  freedom  from  personal  constraint  on  the  part 
of  others.  In  freedom  from  such  constraint,  we  do  not  include 
freedom  from  any  influence  which  a  regard  to  the  opinions  or  the 
sympathy  of  others  may  exert;  but  freedom  from  any  force 
which  hinders  or  forbids  the  expression  or  execution,  by  word 
or  act,  of  the  purposes  or  feelings.  This,  again,  does  not  imply 
that  the  rewards  and  penalties  of  formal  law  should  not  be  used 
to  deter  from  those  overt  actions  which  the  law  forbids ;  but, 
rather,  that  the  opportunity  to  disobey  should  be  given  to  every 
man  who  chooses  to  avail  himself  of  it,  in  full  view  of  the 
penalties  which  will  follow. 

The  importance  of  this  freedom  to  the  happiness  and  devel- 
opment, to  the  moral  responsibility  and  growth,  of  every  man,  is 
attested  by  the  consciousness  of  every  man  who  is  competent  to 
ask  and  answer  the  question  whether  he  esteems  it  to  be  a 
blessing.  -  This  desire  and  demand  for  it  are  responded  to  by 
the  sympathy  and  the  conscience  of  every  one  who  is  not  biased 


408  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL   SCIENCE.  [§  219. 

by  some  secondary  consideration  of  interest  or  feeling,  or  some 
theoretical  or  traditional  prejudice.  Hence  the  sacredness  of 
this  right,  and  the  earnestness  and  desperation  with  which  men 
will  fight  and  die  for  it. 

Benevolence  requires  that  this  right  should  be  conceded  and 
secured  to  all  men  except  to  idiots,  or  imbeciles,  or 

To  whom  ,  * 

should  the  msane,  all  of  whom  are  temporarily  or  perma- 

hberty  be        ncntlv  destitute  of  the  capacities  or  deprived  of  th( 

secured!  "^  '  ^ 

conditions  of  independent  manhood  ;  excepting  also 
offenders  or  derelicts  who  are  punished  by  due  process  of  law. 
In  respect  to  all  these  persons,  benevolence  commands  that  they 
should  be  held  in  personal  restraint  for  their  own  good  and  the 
good  of  their  fellow-men.  This  right  does  not  hold  of  minors 
or  infants,  who  are  supposed  to  require  a  gradual  training  to 
that  capacity  to  use  their  completed  freedom,  which  the  theory 
of  universal  liberty  contemplates  as  the  destined  end  for  all.  It 
may  not  morally  require  or  justify  the  sudden  emancipation  of 
an  enslaved  class,  unless  it  can  be  assured  or  proved  that  liberty 
will  bring  a  blessing  to  them  and  the  community ;  but  it  does 
require  that  the  ultimate  emancipation  of  every  human  being 
should  be  contemplated  as  possible  and  obligatory,  and  that 
immediate  measures  should  be  taken  for  its  final  accomplish- 
ment. This  position  is  a  natural  and  necessary  corollary  from 
the  general  axiom  concerning  the  moral  order  of  the  universe, 
which  underlies  all  ethical  principles  and  inferences. 

It  has  sometimes  —  indeed,  it  has  not  infrequently  —  been 
urged,  that  the  obligation  to  accord  to  all  men  this  right  of 
personal  liberty  leaves  no  room  for  discretion  on  the  part  of  the 
individual  or  the  community ;  that  to  concede  any  limitations 
upon  the  exercise  of  this  duty,  is  inconsistent  with  its  being  a 
duty  at  all.  It  is  sufficient  to  reply  to  this  positive  and  plausible 
position,  that  the  benevolent  will  or  purpose  is  one  thing,  and 
the  external  act  to  which  it  impels  is  another ;  that,  conse- 
quently, the  realization  of  our  purposes,  in  respect  even  to  the 
natural  rights  of  men,  is  a  matter  in  regard  to  which  no  precise 


§  220.]  DIFFERENT  CLASSES  OF  RIGHTS.  409 

or  mandatory  rules  can  be  prescribed  or  admitted.  The  only 
moral  authority  which  binds  or  holds  us  to  any  duty  is  the  rule 
of  benevolent  will.  The  authority  to  concede  or  secure  a  natu- 
ral right  to  our  fellow-man  is  derived  from  the  knowledge  or 
belief  that  it  will  result  in  good  to  him,  or  to  others  through 
him.  How  far  this  belief  can  extend,  and  to  what  duties  it 
should  impel,  has  just  been  explained.  So  far,  and  so  far  only, 
can  we  be  bound  to  secure  or  concede  any  natural  right.  This 
distinction  will  suffice  to  sustain  our  faith  in  the  natural  right 
of  every  man  to  his  personal  freedom,  and  to  regulate  our 
actions  in  conceding  to  him  this  right. 

§  220.   The  right  to  property  has   already  been   briefly  con- 
sidered under  the  duties  which  man  owes  to  himself  mght  to 
(§        ).    We  return  to  it  here  as  enforcing  the  duty  property, 
to  respect  the  right  to  property  which  inheres  in  other  men.     It 
has  already  been  assumed,  that  the  possession  of  property  is 
one  of  the  constant  and  essential  conditions  of  hu-   ^  . 

Desire  of 

man  well-being,  so  constant  and  essential  as  to  be  a  property 
universal  ground  for  perpetual  obligations  from  man  ***  ^^^  ' 
to  himself.     This  obligation  is,  if  possible,  still  more  obvious 
when  we  consider  the  duties  of  man  with  respect  to  the  well- 
being  of  his  fellow-men.     Few  will  question  this  truth  who  look 
at  the  constitution  of  man,  and  the  facts  of  human  existence,  as 
they  are.     The  first  and  most  engrossing  desires  and  acts  of 
infancy  impel  to  the  appropriation  of  nourishment  impulses  to 
and  warmth  and  bodily  comfort.     As  rapidly  as  the  ^*^"  ^^' 
mind  is  awakened  to  the  apprehension  of  the  value  of  perma- 
nence in  the  attainment  and  security  of  any  conditions  of  good, 
exactly  in  that  proportion  does  it  tend  to  acquisition.     More- 
over, the  lowest  and  most  uncertain  civilization  cannot   exist 
without  the  control  of  a  scanty  peculium  in  the  clothes  which 
men  wear,  the  huts  in  which  they  lodge,  the  temporary  enclo-: 
sures   of   soil  which   they  plant  for  a  single   harvest,  or  the 
implements  of  hunting  and  fishing  which  they  use.     The  most 
liberal  acts   of   princely  benevolence   require   property  as   the 


410  ELEMENTS  OF  MOBAL  SCIENCE.  [§  221. 

medium  of  adequately  manifesting  the  feeling  of  God-like  love. 
Every  communistic  association  carefully  appropriates,  and  zeal- 
ously defends  against  outside  intruders,  the  limits  of  its  common 
fund,  and  diligently  labors  for  its  increase,  for  the  enjoyment 
and  use  of  its  limited  partnership.  These  and  manifold  other 
objective  indications  prove  that  the  arrangements  of  nature  for 
man  suppose  property  with  its  claims  to  be  one  of  the  perma- 
nent and  universal  conditions  of  individual  and  social  welfare. 

Men  feel  a  special  interest  in  whatever  they  can  completely 
s  eciai  control,  and  find,  in  the  desire  to  appropriate  and 

interest  in  to  use,  the  most  efficient  stimulus  to  effort  and  pains- 
proper  y.  taking.  These  special  and  strong  subjective  affec- 
tions, when  set  over  against  the  objective  indications  already 
referred  to,  justify  or  rather  enforce  the  conclusion  that  man 
may  assert  a  moral  claim  to  something  as  his  own,  and  that  this 
moral  claim  will  be  universally  responded  to  by  the  moral  con- 
victions of  his  fellow-men.  Property,  being  classed  with  life 
and  liberty  as  one  of  the  essential  and  universal  conditions  of 
human  welfare,  is  the  subject  of  one  of  those  moral  claims 
which  men  call  rights  by  eminence,  i.e.,  one  of  the  inalienable 
and  natural  rights.  This  right  is  enforced  by  the  same  authority, 
and  subjected  to  the  same  limitations,  which  pertain  to  the  right 
to  liberty  and  life.  To  the^e  claims,  the  law  of  love  requires  a 
universal  and  ready  recognition  on  the  part  of  all  men.  This 
right  inheres  in  every  human  being,  and  should  be  recognized 
and  respected  by  all  with  respect  to  all  their  fellows.  Nothing 
but  extraordinary  individual  and  social  conditions  can  excuse  or 
justify  its  being  denied  or  withheld  by  one  man  with  respect  to 
the  other. 

§  221.  What  constitutes  and  defines  property,  must  to  a  large 

extent   be   determined   by   custom   and   law.     The 

largely  de-      general  consent  of  the  community,  whether  this  is 

fined  by  law     expressed  by  the  usajg^es  and  traditions  in  which  all 

and  cuRtom.  '^  " 

men  acquiesce,  or  whether  it  is  carefully  delined  by 

statutes,  must  be  accepted  as  determining  what  is  a  peculium 


§  222.]  DIFFERENT  CLASSES  OF  RIGHTS.  411 

or  private  possession,  and  to  whom  it  belongs.  Every  man,  as 
he  awakes  to  moral  consciousness,  finds  himself  surrounded  by 
the  owners  of  property  as  thus  determined.  He  also  finds 
himself  enjoying  its  blessings,  and  confronted  with  the  motives 
to  recognize  its  value  and  moral  authority.  Hence  he  gradually 
but  easily  understands  the  reasonableness  of,  and  responds  to, 
the  obligation  to  respect  the  property  of  his  fellow-men,  as  a 
special  precept  under  the  general  law  of  love.  As  has  been 
already  said,  the  nature  and  extent  of  property  must,  to  a  large 
extent,  be  determined  by  established  custom  and  positive  law. 
The  terms  by  which  it  is  held,  the  evidences  on  which  it  is 
established,  the  methods  by  which  it  is  conveyed,  the  processes 
by  which  it  is  asserted,  differ  in  different  communities. 

Some,  and  perhaps  all,  of  these  arrangements,  are  fairly 
subjects  of  investigation  as  to  whether  they  are  founded  in  the 
nature,  or  are  permanently  adapted  to  the  well-being,  of  man. 
Questions  of  this  kind  are  all  legitimate  topics  of  speculation 
in  political  and  social  science,  and  some  of  them  have  a  most 
important  influence  upon  human  well-being.  For  this  reason, 
the  discussion  and  adjustment  of  them  are  important  duties, 
and  hold  an  important  place  in  practical  ethics.  But  to  contend 
against  the  existing  tenures  and  laws  of  property  as  immoral, 
because  they  may  involve  exposure  to  moral  evil,  and  to  infer 
that  therefore  they  are  not  binding  on  the  conscience,  may  be 
criminal  in  various  degrees  of  guilt,  but  is  always  an  open 
offence  against  the  state,  and  therefore  against  one's  kind. 
The  moral  crime  of  demagoguism  of  this  sort  is  equally  serious, 
whether  it  be  committed  in  the  political  harangue,  the  declama- 
tory pulpit,  the  journalist's  editorial,  or  the  professor's  chair. 
Property  may  be  gained  and  held  in  the  spirit  of  robbery  ;  but 
property  in  itself  is  not  robbery,  but  an  arrangement  to  which 
man  has  a  natural  right  which  is  sanctioned  by  the  nature 
of  man  and  the  will  of  God. 

§  222  The  three  classes  of  rights  which  we  have  considered,  pertain  to 
blessings  or  benefits,  in  which  the  claimant  is  supposed  to  have  a  personal 


412  ELEMENTS  OF  MOBAL  SCIENCE.  [§  223. 

interest,  and  to  which  he  asserts  his  claim  as  being  essential  conditions 
of  his  personal  welfare.  Being  founded  in  the  permanent  conditions  of 
human  nature,  and  being  common  to  men  as  men,  they  are  called  natural 
nghts. 

There  are  other  rights  which  are  called  adventiticms,  as  being  dependent 
on  accidental  conditions  of  natural  relationship,  or  official  or  social  posi- 
tion; as  the  rights  of  a  parent,  a  ruler,  an  aged  person,  or  a  friend,  bene- 
factor, etc.,  whether  they  can  be  more  or  less  definitely  stated.  Most  of 
these  claims  are  claims  over  or  upon  persons,  and  over  the  actions  — or  it 
may  be  the  feelings  —  of  certain  of  our  fellow-men  holding  certain  relations 
to  their  fellows,  as  contrasted  with  those  benefits  which  are  acknowledged 
to  be  necessary  to  the  claimant  by  reason  of  his  manhood.  Thus  the  rights 
of  a  parent  or  a  ruler  concern  the  actions  of  children  or  subjects  toward 
himself,  and  are  grounded  in  their  interests. 

It  is  worthy  of  notice,  that  rights  of  this  last  class  were  formerly  sni>- 
posed  to  be  the  only  rights  which  are  natural  and  divine,  and  for  this 
reason  were  held  to  be  supreme.  The  rights  of  parents,  of  masters,  and  of 
kings  were  originally  held  to  be  unlimited,  and  not  only  to  be  natural  and 
divine,  but  to  be  the  only  rights  of  this  description,  taking  precedence  of 
every  other,  even  those  now  acknowledged  as  natural  rights ;  the  nroperty, 
the  liberty,  and  life  of  the  citizen,  the  child,  and  the  slave,  being  held  to 
be  subject  by  natural  and  divine  authority  to  the  will  of  the  master,  the 
father,  and  the  king. 

A  better  ethical  and  social  philosophy  has  reversed  this  doctrine,  teaching 
that  rights  over  persons  are  held  as  trusts  for  the  purpose  of  promoting  the 
moral  welfare  of  those  over  whom  they  extend.  So  soon  as  this  end  is 
fulfilled  or  achieved,  the  right  lapses,  and  ceases  to  have  any  moral 
authority  except  so  far  as  the  well-being  of  the  community  requires  the 
general  authority  of  the  official  to  be  maintained.  This  change  has  wrought 
a  revolution  in  many  of  the  reasonings  in  ethical  and  political  philosophy, 
to  say  nothing  of  theology. 

§  223.  The  consideration  of  the  rights  of  men  enables  U9  to 
define  the  conception  and  enforce  the  claims  of  jiis- 
jn*  tice  as  ^^^^  ^  ^  moral  duty.  The  one  is  the  correlate  of 
a  duty  and  the  Other ;  the  one  is  defined  by  means  of  the  other. 
In  general,  justice  as  a  quality  of  intention,  act,  or 
character,  may  be  defined  to  be  such  a  benevolent  recognition 
of  the  rights  and  claims  of  others  as  impels  to  beneficent  action 
in  according  and  defending  them.  It  follows,  that  justice  may 
be  used  in  as  many  specific  senses  as  the  word  '* rights" 
admits. 


§  223.]  DIFFERENT  CLASSES  OF  RIGHTS.  413 

The  familiar  definition  of  justice  given  by  Justinian  will  at 
once  occur  to  the  thoughtful  student:  Justitia  est  Justinian's 
constans  et  perpetua  voluntas  jus  suum  cuique  tribu-  definition. 
endi.  In  this  definition  we  find  happily  recognized  the  most 
obvious  and  essential  features  of  every  moral  state  or  action, 
subjectively  regarded ;  viz.,  voluntariness,  permanence,  and 
supremacy.  We  find  also  the  objective  criterion  of  every  just 
act,  suum  cuique;  i.e.,  that  which  is  one's  own,  or  can  be 
morally  claimed  by  any  one  in  the  largest  sense  of  "to  claim." 

That  these  claims  or  rights  may  admit  of  different  significa- 
tions, and  need  to  be  defined  in  different  circumstances  as  a 
condition  of  the  practical  application  of  the  rule  of  justice,  is 
still  further  provided  in  the  additional  sentence  :  Jurisprudentia 
est  divinarum  atque  humanarum  rerum  scientia,  justi  atque  in- 
Justi  cognitio.  This  implies,  that  in  order  that  the  sua — i.e. ,  the 
claims  or  the  rights  of  men  —  may  be  fixed  and  defined,  there 
must  be  an  accurate  and  comprehensive  knowledge  of  human 
and  divine  things;  i.e.,  of  the  original  relations  in  the  nature 
of  things,  or  purposes  of  reason  and  of  God,  on  which  these 
claims  and  rights  are  founded.  This  knowledge  is  designated 
as  jurisprudence. 

If  the  term  "rights"   is  used  as  co-extensive  with  moral 
claims  of  every  sort,  then  justice  is  the  voluntary 
purpose    and   act   of    conceding   and   fulfilhng    all   niflcations 
claims  of  duty  whatever,  and  is  equivalent  to  the 
benevolent  will  and  the  benevolent  act  in  general,  as  compre- 
hending every  virtuous  act  and  intention  which  terminates   in 
or  affects  our  fellow-men.     If  rights  are  used  to  signify  what 
are  generally  known  as  the  natural  or  universal  rights  of  men, 
then  justice  is  interchangeable  with  the  benevolent  recognition 
of   these  natural  rights,   and  the  duties  which  these  involve. 
Insensibility  to  these  fundamental  claims  is  regarded  as  gross 
and  inexcusable  injustice,   for  the  reason  that   their   reasona- 
bleness and  authority  are  obvious  to  every  honest  mind.     If 
rights,  again,   are  synonymous  with   those   claims   which   are 


414  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL  SCIENCE.  [§  223. 

defined  and  enforced  by  positive  statutes  and  legal  decisions, 
—  such  as  claims  to  property,  or  claims  by  contract,  —  the  dis- 
position  and  willingness  to   abide   by  the   law  as   interpreted 

and  enforced  is  civil  justice,  or  that  justice  which  is 
CiTll  justice.  ,  ,  ,  /        ,  ,     /,.        . 

enforced  by  a  regard  to  the  moral  obligation  to  sus- 
tain civil  order,  and  the  authority  of  legal  tribunals.  If,  again, 
rights  are  used  in  the  sense  of  merely  legal  claims,  —  i.e.,  such 
rights  as  the  statute  may  sanction  by  its  technical  requirements, 
or  the  tribunals  may  enforce  with  the  evidence  and  decisions 

before  them,  —  this  would   be    called  legal  justice. 

Legal  justice.    ^         i    •      i.-  •  ^.u       •      ,^-  i.-   u    - 

Legal  justice,  again,  or  the  justice  which  is  con- 
cerned with  the  rights  which  are  recognized  and  enforced  by  law, 
may  be  limited  to  those  legal  rights  which  concern  the  exchange 
of  values :  in  this  case  it  receives  the  designation  of  commuta- 
Commuta-       ttve  justicc,  or  justicc  in  exchange.     Or  it  may  eon- 

tive,  reiiiu-  ccrn  the  estimation  of  damages,  and  may  be  called 
neratlTe,  and  r  ,       i  ,    . 

punitive  remunerative  justice.  Should  it  concern  the  allot- 
justice.  ment  of  penalty  for  crime  or  neglect,  it  may  then  be 

called  punitive  justice.     Legal  or  formal  justice  may  be  con- 
ceded as  failing,  through  human  imperfection,  to  coincide  with 
those  moral  claims  which  the  knowledge  of  motives  and  other 
facts  and  relations  would  sanction.     Such  an  ideal 

Equity. 

justice  is  designated  as  equity,  or  the  will  and  dis- 
position to  respond  to  those  moral  claims  which  are  higher  than 
those  of  technical  or  formal  or  legal  justice.  In  such  cases, 
that  action  or  decision  is  emphasized  as  just,  which  renders  to 
another  all  that  equity  assigns  to  him  in  foro  conscientice,  as 
contrasted  with  the  allotments  of  formal  justice.  Legal  or 
formal  justice,  so  far  as  it  goes,  is  in  theory  coincident  with  the 
word  "justice"  in  its  highest  import;  but  as  the  former  con- 
cerns itself  only  with  the  civil  rights  of  individuals, 

PI&C6  of  Jus* 

tice  among  ^^^^  ^^  socicty  in  the  aggregate,  it  stops  short  of 
tiie  cardinal     ^hc  larpjer  range  over  which  moral  justice  extends. 

Tirtues.  ^  ^  *' 

In  view  of  these  varied  significations  and  uses  of 
the  term,  it  is  not  diflScult  to  explain  the  fact  that  justice  has 


§  223.]  BIFFEBENT  CLASSES  OF  BIGHTS.  415 

been  assigned  to  the  place  of  honor  among  the  virtues  ;  that 
with  some  modern  critics,  especially  those  of  the  purely  rational 
or  intellectual  school,  like  Price  and  Kant,  it  has  been  deemed 
the  fundamental  moral  idea,  the  ethical  relation  by  eminence.^ 
Among  the  ancients,  as  by  Plato,  three  virtues  having  been  as- 
signed to  the  three  faculties  of  the  soul, — as  follows:  to  the 
faculty  of  reason,  the  virtue  of  wisdom  ;  to  the  heart,  or  the 
emotive  nature,  the  virtue  of  courage,  or  manly  spirit ;  to 
the  senses,  temperance,  —  justice  was  enthroned  as  a  queea 
over  the  three,  its  office  being  to  distribute  to  each  its  place 
and  its  functions,  and  hence  was  not  infrequently  invested  with 
an  ideal  supremacy.  The  generic  idea  of  justice  in  such  appli- 
cations is  a  voluntary  conformity  to  the  nature  or  relations  of 
things  in  any  complex  individual  or  social  organism.  Nearly 
allied  to  justice  as  thus  conceived,  was  the  concept-ion  which 
"Wollaston  formed  of  truth  as  the  fundamental  and  all-compre- 
hensive moral  idea. 

By  the  moderns,  general  justice  has  been  conceived,  as  we 
have  already  seen,  as  moral  equity  or  rectitude  in  the  actions 
and  fejelings  of  men,  or  of  the  Supreme  Being,  with  respect 
to  the  character  and  deserts  of  any  and  all ;  also  with  respect  to 
their  claims,  whether  their  claims  to  good  as  a  reward,  or  their 
deserts  of  evil  as  punishment. 

1  See  Note  2,  to  The  Spital  Sermon,  by  Dr.  Samuel  Parr  (London,  1801), 
for  an  interesting  collection  of  passages  expressing  this  view,  from  Aris- 
totle down  to  Jonathan  Edwards,  who  formulates  the  doctrine  held  more 
or  less  distinctly  by  all,  in  these  words':  "Indeed,  most  of  the  duties 
incumbent  on  us,  if  well  considered,  will  be  found  to  partake  of  the  nature 
of  justice.  There  is  some  natural  agreement  of  one  thing  to  another,  some 
adaptedness  of  the  agent  to  the  object,  some  answerableness  of  the  act  to 
the  occasion,  some  equality  and  proportion  in  things  of  a  similar  relation, 
and  of  direct  relation  of  one  to  another.  So  is  it  in  relative  duties,  duties 
of  parents  to  children,  etc."  For  an  exaggerated  conception  of  this  truth, 
see  Political  Justice,  by  William  Godwin,  1793. 


416  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL  SCIENCE.  [§  224. 


CHAPTER  X. 

DUTIES  OF  TRUTH,  OR  VERACITY. 

§  224.  Prominent  among  the  special  duties  which  man  owes 
Prominence  to  all  his  fellows,  is  the  duty  of  veracity.  The  duty 
of  veracity,  jjj^y  j^g  formulated  thus  :  WJienever  a  man  professes 
to  impart  any  knowledge  of  fact  or  intention  to  his  fellow-men, 
such  communication  should  be  truthful;  i.e.,  should  correspond 
to  the  truth  of  things.  Upon  the  observance  of  veracity,  society 
depends  almost  for  its  existence,  and  manifestly  for  its  well- 
being.  If  the  rights  of  men  are  the  foundation  of  the  social 
structure,  veracity  is  the  cement  which  holds  this  structure  to- 
gether. Even  Hobbes  recognizes  the  truth,  in  the  concession 
that,  though  society  rests  upon  a  contract  extorted  by  fear, 
yet  this  contract  supposes  and  implies  veracity  in  the  parties. 
The  rule  is  of  universal  extent  and  obligation.  It  extends 
to  all  men,  with  no  limitations  of  race,  nation,  or.  social  rank, 
or  of  any  special  personal  relationship  or  feeling ;  requu-ing 
absolutely  that  the  truth  should  be  told  by  all  men  to  all, 
whenever  their  circumstances  require  that  any  communication 
should  be  made.  The  rule,  it  should  be  observed,  does  not 
assert  that  every  man  is  morally  bound  to  make  a  communica- 
tion to  his  fellow  in  every  instance  in  which  it  is  greatly  de- 
sired, or  would  be  a  great  blessing  to  the  man  who  desires  and 
seeks  it.  It  would  be  preposterous  to  assert,  that,  under  the 
law  of  benevolence,  men  are  bound  to  answer  all  the  questions 
which  other  men  are  prompted  by  curiosity  or  their  necessities 


§225.]  DUTIES  OF  TRUTH,   OB   VEBACITY.  417 

to  ask.  But  it  is  altogether  reasonable  to  assert,  that,  when 
they  propose  or  profess  to  answer  such  questions,  they  should 
answer  them  truly. 

The  obligation  to  communicate  information,  though  this  is 
often  a  real  obligation,  and  an  obligation  which  is 
often  wrongfully  disregarded,  is   by  no  means   so  tiontocom- 
extensive  as  the  duty  to  communicate  it  correctly.   ™""*<^**®' 

•^  -^      and  to  corn- 

It  may  be  my  duty  to  withhold  information  such  as  is  municate 

greatly  desired  and  very  much  needed  by  the  indi-  ^^^^^^  ^' 
vidual  who  asks  it ;  and  yet  it  may  be  equally  binding  never  to 
deviate  from  the  truth  whenever  I  profess  to  impart  such  knowl- 
edge. Each  of  these  duties  is  equally  clear  and  imperative,  but 
each  class  of  duties  is  not  equally  extensive.  Both  may  rest 
on  the  general  duty  of  benevolence,  but  each  is  enforced  by 
separate  and  special  reasons  of  good  to  those  who  are  concerned. 
It  may  be  desirable  and  necessary  that  B,  the  expectant,  should 
receive  the  information  which  A  is  competent  to  give  him,  and 
it  may  be  true  that  A  is  morally  bound  to  impart  this  knowledge 
to  B  ;  but  this  obligation  is  not  an  obligation  to  veracity.  But 
if  A  professes  to  impart  to  B  such  information,  or  any  informa- 
tion, then  the  duty  of  veracity  comes  in :  in  every  such  case,  A  is 
morally  bound  to  impart  the  truth. 

The  rule  extends  to  every  method  of  communication,  to  acts 
or  looks  or  gestures  as  truly  as  to  written  or  spoken  words  ;  and 
it  imparts  to  each  and  to  all  an  obligation  which  is  equally  real 
and  imperative.  A  man  may  deceive  or  lie  as  malignantly  and 
as  effectively  by  a  gesture  or  a  look  as  by  a  word  or  an  oath. 

§  225.  The  duty  of  veracity  is  included  under,  and  enforced 
by,  the  general  obligation  to  promote  the  highest  yeradtyen. 

good  of  our  fellow-men  ;  i.e.,  to  do  good  to  all  men  forced  by  the 

.  law  of  love, 

as  we  have  opportunity.     That  the  duty  is  enforced 

by  this  general  rule,  is  obvious  ;  the  only  point  in  question,  and 

in  respect  to  which  moralists  differ,  being  whether  this  is  the 

only  ground  of  this  obligation.     Mutual  confidence  and  mutual 

understanding  are  well-nigh  essential  to  the  existence  of  society. 


418  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL  SCIENCE.  [§  225. 

They  are  absolutely  indispensable  to  any  community  that  would 
realize  the  highest  end  for  which  society  exists.  The  instant  a 
man  recognizes  another  as  his  fellow-man,  he  recognizes  him  as 
one  whose  thoughts  and  purposes  he  must  understand  in  order 
that  he  may  conform  to  them  his  own  actions  and  plans.  The 
first  condition  for  establishing  mutual  intercourse  with  him,  or 
existing  in  society  at  all,  is  that  he  should  be  able  to  rely  on 
the  unconscious  and  natural  expressions  of  the  same  which  are 
made  by  look  and  gesture,  such  as  those  through  which  the 
mother  and  child  enter  into  mutual  converse.  Nature  not  only 
establishes  a  connection  between  the  two,  but  awakens  confi- 
dence in  these  signs  as  uniformly  expressing  the  same  import. 
Moreover,  to  deviate  from  this  understood  connection,  to  simu- 
late thoughts  and  feelings  which  do  not  exist,  by  using  signs 
which  are  appropriate  to  other  thoughts  and  feelings,  requires 
an  effort  on  the  part  of  any  one  who  attempts  it,  and  shocks 
and  disappoints  the  recipient.  In  this  sense,  and  for  these 
reasons,  nature  is  eminently  veracious,  and  teaches  lessons  of 
natural  truth  and  honesty  before  the  development  of  moral 
responsibility,  or  the  awakening  of  any  sensibility  to  veracity 
as  a  duty. 

So  soon  as  the  value  of  truth  to  the  recipient  begins  to  be 

understood,  and  the  motives  to  practise  it  begin  to 

recognized  at  ^^  appreciated  by  the  reflective  judgment,  the  duty 

an  early         of  veracity  is  distinctly  recognized  as  morally  im- 

period. 

perative.  The  natural  impulse  to  utter  the  truth, 
and  the  thought  of  the  good  which  is  involved  in  the  reception 
of  it,  combine  to  move  and  command  the  moral  person  to  utter 
the  truth  whenever  he  professes  to  impart  knowledge.  Just  so 
fast  as  man  generalizes  and  thinks,  just  so  rapidly  do  his 
apprehensions  widen,  of  the  importance  of  the  rule  of  truth 
as  universal,  and  his  sensibility  responds  to  its  authority  as 
inviolable. 

The  natural  impulse  to  tell  the  truth  is  sanctioned   by  the 
reflective  judgment  as  it  thinks  more  widely  and  deeply.     The 


§225.]  DUTIES  OF  TRUTH,   OR   VERACITY,  419 

value  of  truth  as  a  social  bond  is  more  and  more  sensitively 
appreciated   as   the    child    develops   into   manhood  „ 

^^  ^  '^  Sanctioned  by 

under  the  training  of  an  upright  social  environment  reflection  and 
and  the  stimulus  of  honest  desires.  Under  favor-  ®^p*^"®"*®* 
able  circumstances,  the  necessity  and  propriety  of  uttering  the 
truth  commend  themselves  to  the  assent  and  feelings  of  all 
classes  of  men.  In  circumstances  that  are  most  unfavorable, 
when  private  interests  prompt  to  frequent  falsehood,  the  man 
who  is  an  habitual  and  a  shameless  liar  finds  it  so  often  neces- 
sary to  these  very  interests  to  learn  the  truth  from  his  fellow- 
men,  as  to  enforce  upon  his  fellow-men  the  very  demand  which 
he  violates  for  himself.  Hence,  in  the  multitude  of  cases  in 
which  he  has  no  interests  at  stake,  he  assents  to  the  value  of 
truth  as  a  general  rule  for  mankind.  For  this  reason,  the 
injunction  to  tell  the  truth  is  one  of  the  simplest  and  earliest 
lessons  in  ethics  which  is  learned  in  infancy.  The  child  can 
see  at  a  glance  the  propriety  that  men  should  trust  one  another, 
and  knows  that  only  selfish  and  private  interests  can  interfere 
with  or  oppose  the  spontaneous  impulse  to  be  true,  or  favor 
the  impulse  to  be  false-  As  the  child  advances  in  years,  these 
convictions  tend  to  become  more  distinct  and  more  positive. 
They  are  enforced  also  by  the  authority  and  interests  of  our 
fellow-men,  with  more  or  less  consistency  and  earnestness. 
Even  when  the  child  is  tempted  to  lie,  and  even  when  it  is 
trained  and  persuaded  in  special  cases  to  deceive,  the  cases 
and  reasons  are  confessed  to  be  exceptional  by  its  teachers  and 
tempters  to  falsehood,  and  are  rejected  by  the  honest  mind. 
Even  in  those  demoralized  communities  in  which  falsehood  is 
inculcated  as  a  virtue,  and  the  sensibility  to  truth  seems  to  be 
nearly  obliterated,  the  reasons  for  observing  it  are  always  dor- 
mant in  the  mind,  and  are  ready  to  be  awakened,  while  the 
obligation  to  regard  them  is  as  quickly  responded  to.  For  all 
practical  purposes,  the  rule  is  axiomatic  and  self-evident :  Be 
truthful  in  all  your  communications  with  your  fellow-men,  if 
you  would  promote  their  highest  good. 


420  ELEMENTS  OF  MOBAL  SCIENCE,  [§  226. 

§  226.  The  fidjilment   of  promises^  or  the   "keeping  one's 

™,    ...  word,"  is  nearly  related  to  the  observation  of  vera- 

The  "  keep-  '  "^ 

ing  one's  city,  and  like  this  duty  is  enforced  and  regulated 
^^^  '  by  the  la\7  of  love.     A  promise  is  a  statement  or 

expression  of  our  purpose  to  perform  some  action  which  con- 
cerns our  fellow-man,  and  to  which  he  may  adjust  his  own 
activities  and  plans.  As  the  limited  knowledge  of  men  requires 
that  they  should  receive  knowledge  from  others,  and  veracity  is 
thus  made  a  necessity  and  a  virtue  ;  similarly,  their  dependence 
on  others  for  direction  and  assistance  in  the  future  requires 
that  they  should  confide  in  the  representations  which  are  made 
of  their  own  future  actions.  This  is  pre-eminently  true  when 
the  promise  is  the  condition  of  future  actions  by  the  other 
party.  The  making  of  a  promise  implies  that  the  promisee 
will  have  occasion  to  adjust  his  conduct  or  to  regulate  his  inter- 
ests or  his  expectations  to  what  the  promiser  declares  of  his 
intentions.  To  fail  to  make  our  declaration  good,  may  disap- 
point his  expectations,  and  cause  him  to  fail  of  his  own  designs 
through  a  more  or  less  complicated  series  of  events.  It  also 
disturbs  the  general  and  individual  confidence  more  seriously 
than  a  simple  mis-statement  of  facts,  and  shows  a  more  in- 
tensely energetic  and  positively  selfish  disregard  of  the  welfare 
of  others.  Hence  the  violation  of  a  promise  is  rightly  deemed 
a  grosser  offence  than  the  utterance  of  a  falsehood ;  and  the 
enormity  of  the  offence  is  measured  by  the  importance  of  the 
interest  which  is  trifled  with,  and  the  solemnity  with  which 
the  promise  is  made.  If  the  promise  takes  the  form  of  a  cove- 
nant, and  is  conditional  upon  the  acts  or  sacrifices  of  another, 
and  the  transaction  is  so  important  as  to  involve  serious  delib- 
eration and  a  definite  understanding  on  both  sides,  the  offence 
is  regarded  as  still  more  criminal ;  because  the  selfishness  is 
more  deliberate  and  energetic.  If  the  contract  is  made  more 
sacred  by  appeals  to  the  sanction  of  religion,  or  the  use  of 
judicial  formalities,  the  violation  of  it  is  sometimes  regarded 
as  more  than  an  offence  against  private  interests :  it  becomes 


§227.]  DUTIES  OF  TRUTH,   OB   VERACITY.  421 

an    offence    against   public    morality,    and   is   punished   as   a 
crime. 

We  have  thus  far  derived  the  duties  of  veracity  and  promise- 
keeping  from  the  general  obligation  of  benevolence.  It  is  self- 
evident  that  no  man  will  deny  that  the  law  of  love  enforces 
many,  and  perhaps  all,  of  the  duties  of  veracity  and  fidelity. 
The  prevalence  of  mutual  confidence,  which  veracity  only  can 
sustain,  is  too  manifest  and  great  a  blessing  to  leave  any  doubt 
that  the  benevolent  man  must  necessarily  be  a  truth-speaking 
and  veracious  man.  An  habitual  liar  and  covenant-breaker 
shows  himself  thereby  to  be  selfishly  indifferent  to  the  well- 
being  of  his  fellows. 

§  227.  There  are  not  a  few  moralists  who  require  some  other 
ground  for  this  duty,  and  deny  that  benevolence  is  Qti,er 
the  sole  or  sufficient  ground  of  the  duty  to  be  vera-   grounds  than 

benevolence 

cious  with  our  fellow-men,  so  far  as  our  fellow-men  required  by 
are  concerned.     But  the  effect  upon  ourselves,  all  ^°™®* 
will  concede,  is  also  worthy  to  be  considered.     It  is  an  over- 
sight and  an  error  to  overlook  the  effect  or  tendency  upon  our- 
selves of  untruthfulness  in  word  or  act.     The  ones-  „^ 

^  The  question 

tion  stated  more  exactly  would  be  this :  So  far  as  carefully 
the  duties  of  truth  from  man  to  man  are  concerned, 
are  they  enforced  by  any  other  law  or  principle  than  the  law 
of  love  from  man  to  man?     Those  who  assert  that  they  are, 
and  seek  for  another  principle,  think  they  find  it  in  the  felt  or 
recognized  obligation  to  tell  the  truth  for  its  own  sake,  aside 
from  any  direct  or  remote  obligation  derived  from  a  regard  to 
the  general  good.     They  hold  the  duty  to  be  original  and  sim- 
ple, to  reflect  to  others  in  words  or  looks  the  truth  of  things 
or  thoughts  as  they  are.     They  find  here  the  original  basis  or 
authority  for  veracity ;  although  they  also  acknowl-  j^aturai 
edge  that  this  original  obligation  may  be  supple-  impulse  to 

expect  and 

mented  by  the  duty  of  ethical  love  to  our  neighbor,   to  utter  the 
in  view  of  the  natural  and  moral  good  which  veracity  *^"*^* 
tends  to  accomplish.     It  cannot  be  doubted,  we  think,  that  there 


422  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL  SCIENCE.  [§  228. 

is  an  original  impulse  in  man  to  speak  the  truth,  and  another 
impulse  to  expect  the  truth.  Both  these  impulses,  however, 
are  purely  natural :  even  if  the  moral  adds  to  each  a  special 
energy,  it  is  still  distinguishable  from  each.  Wollaston,  in  his 
*' Religion  of  Nature,"  etc.,  has  carried  this  theory  to  the 
utmost  extreme,  in  the  doctrine  that  the  relations  of  right  and 
wrong  are  deducible  from  and  resolved  into  the  relations  of 
truth  and  falsehood  ;  every  good  and  bad  action  being  resolved, 
according  to  him,  into  the  expressing  by  action  of  truth  or  false- 
hood. It  is  easy  to  see  how  such  a  theory  may  at  first  view 
seem  very  plausible.  It  is  not  difficult  to  discern,  at  second 
thought,  that  the  two  are  not  co-extensive  ;  an  incorrect  state- 
ment or  an  untrue  action  being  in  no  sense  equipollent  with 
actions  or  purposes  which  are  immoral. 

§  228.  The  question  is  interesting,  both  from  a  practical  and 
Is  there  an  speculative  point  of  view,  whether  there  is  an  inde- 
obiigation  to  pendent  obligation  to  tell  the  truth  for  the  truth* s 

speak  the  , 

truth  for  Safie. 

♦'the truth's        It  will  be  Conceded,  that  veracity,   as  a  moral 

8ake"l  .  *^ 

attribute,  requires  a  design,  purpose,  or  intention. 

An  accidental  but  unintended  failure  to  declare  the  truth,  or 
fulfil  a  promise,  even  if  either  were  painfully  and  minutely 
exact,  would  involve  no  moral  criminality.  The  intention  to  fail 
to  do  either,  if  the  intention  rested  in  the  act  as  such,  would 
involve  no  more.  The  intention  must  surely  respect  something 
more  than  the  relation  of  the  act  to  reality  :  it  must  contemplate 
some  relation  of  the  act  to  some  good  with  which  human  beings 
are  concerned,  either  the  utterer  or  the  receiver  of  the  declara- 
tion, one  or  both.  The  intention,  also,  must  have  some  connec- 
tion or  relation  with  the  ruling  purpose,  which  we  call  a  virtuous 
character,  and  which  belongs  to  the  virtuous  man.  The  only 
common  relation  which  we  can  think  of  is  that  found  in  human 
well-being  as  promoted  by  constant  veracity,  and  enforced  by 
ethical  love  to  man  as  the  common  characteristic  of  all  the 
activities  which  are  virtuous.     To  superadd  any  other  element, 


§228.]  DUTIES  OF  TBUTII,   OR   VEBACITY,  423 

is  to  introduce  an  element  which  is  superfluous,  and  with  no 
determinate  relation  to  the  other  acts  or  intentions  which  are 
recognized  as  obligatory. 

That  such  an  addition  is  both  superfluous  and  irrelevant, 
appears  from  the  circumstance,  that  to  fail  to  tell  the  truth, 
simply  as  an  act  of  deviation  from  the  reality  of  things,  and 
aside  from  recklessness  of  the  good  of  others,  is  often  no  sin. 
Certainly  it  is  no  sin,  if  there  is  no  intention  to  mislead,  and 
the  deception  or  misunderstanding  results  from  defective  at- 
tention, or  careless  misinterpretation  of  the  words  or  signs 
employed,  for  which  the  informant  is  not  responsible.  To 
mislead  is  of  itself  not  always  criminal,  even  though  the  in- 
formant actually  deceives  and  disappoints ;  for  he  may  do 
both  unintentionally. 

Nor  is  it  necessarily  criminal,  even  to  intend  to  produce  a  false 
impression,  as  in  joke  or  sport,  when  there  is  a  tacit 

...  .  ,     -,  Not  always 

or  explicit  expectation  or  agreement  to  challenge  a  wrong  to 
deceiver  to  do  his  utmost  in  that  direction.     Or  if  convey  a  false 

impression. 

this  doctrine  should  be  challenged,  as  it  might  be, 
by  a  few  theorists  or  over-scrupulous  critics,  there  are  cases  in 
which  to  make  a  false  communication  and  deliberately  to  intend 
it,  is  not  only  not  criminal,  but  positively  praiseworthy.  Let  a 
malignant  enemy  make  a  strike  for  my  life,  and  let  me  escape 
by  a  quick  movement  that  deceives  and  misleads  him  ;  as,  let 
him  pursue  me  along  a  dark  passage,  and  let  it  be  supposed 
that  I  make  a  movement  as  though  I  would  go  in  another  direc- 
tion, so  as  to  deceive  him  and  save  myself  :  1  certainly  misrepre- 
sent the  facts  of  the  ease,  and  deceive  him  in  respect  to  them  ; 
but  who  will  say  that  my  act  is  morally  wrong,  although  it  is 
a  deliberate  and  designed  deviation  from  the  truth?  Such  an 
example  may  suffice  to  show  that  the  criminality  of  untruth  is 
not  found  in  its  deviation  from  reality  and  fact,  but  in  its  weak- 
ening effect  upon  that  confidence  between  man  and  man  which 
is  most  essential  to  man's  well-being,  and  its  intended  and 
selfish  disregard  of  the  same. 


424  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL  SCIENCE.         [§§  229, 230. 

§  229.  To  the  maintenance  of  this  confidence,  a  uniform  and 
Veracity  unbroken  habit  of  true  and  exact  utterances  on  the 
as  a  habit.  p^rt  of  all  men  is  absolutely  essential.  Were  every 
man  to  deviate  from  the  truth  in  a  few  instances,  the  confidence 
of  men  in  one  another  would  be  weakened  to  an  enormous  ex- 
tent. Were  this  to  be  done  in  those  cases  in  which  it  might 
seem  to  be  for  the  advantage  of  the  person  who  is  disappointed, 
the  effect  would  be  the  same.  The  habit  of  hesitation  and  ques- 
tioning on  the  part  of  the  deceiver  would  weaken  still  further 
the  confidence  of  men  in  one  another,  and  even  in  themselves. 
To  speak  the  truth,  not  unfrequently  requires  courage.  To  fail 
to  speak  it,  evinces  cowardice,  especially  when  the  temptation  to 
deviate  addresses  one's  fear  to  offend.  The  habit  of  lying  is 
one  which  gains  a  strong  hold  of  the  inner  man,  especially  of 
the  young,  at  a  rate  which  is  frightfully  rapid.  The  virtues  of 
the  Spartan  code  —  to  endure  hardship,  to  suffer  pain  without 
complaint,  to  defend  one's  self,  and  to  speak  the  truth  —  have, 
from  the  earliest  periods,  been  classed  together  as  among  the 
heroic  virtues.  It  is  certain,  that  in  all  those  communities  in 
which  these  virtues  do  not  prevail,  and  are  not  honored,  weak- 
ness and  rottenness  have  begun.  Lying  in  schools,  lying  in 
social  intercourse,  lying  in  politics,  lying  in  newspapers,  lying 
in  the  churches,  lying  or  even  habitual  exaggeration  in  the 
pulpit,  characterize  general  degeneracy,  and  forebode  rapid 
decay  and  demoralization. 

§  230.  The  question  has  not  infrequently  been  asked,  and 
Is  it  moraHy  differently  answered,  whether  it  is  ever  allowable  to 
right  ever  to    deceive  ;  whether  it  can  ever  be  right  to  tell  or  act 

deceive!  .  rrti        .     . 

a  falsehood,  or  to  break  one  s  promises.  That  it  is 
often  necessary  to  fail  to  fulfil  one's  promises  to  the  exact  letter, 
is  conceded.  In  respect  to  the  cases  supposed,  and  the  reasons 
which  are  adduced  on  either  side,  much  difference  of  opinion 
prevails.  Supposed  and  actual  cases  of  necessity  have  been 
adduced  in  great  numbers,  under  which  deviations  from  the 
truth  have  been  justified ;  and  the  questions  have  been  urged 


§230.]  DUTIES  OF  TBUTH,   OR   VEBACITY,  425 

with  great  earnestness,  whether,  even  in  cases  so  extreme  as 
those  which  are  cited,  it  is  ever  right  knowingly  to  deceive.  In 
general  it  may  be  said,  that  if  the  case  is  perfectly  clear  that 
the  deviation  from  the  truth  will  neither  weaken  the  mutual  con- 
fidence of  man  in  man,  nor  tend  to  form  or  strengthen  a  tendency 
to  lightly  esteem  the  truth,  the  deviation  may  be  allowed.  That 
cases  should  occur  which  are  exceptional  to  all  the  ordinary 
rules  of  external  conduct,  is  no  singular  or  strange  event  in  the 
application  of  the  moral  code.  As  we  have  already  seen,  with 
the  exception  of  a  few  classes  of  external  actions,  there  are  a 
great  majority  of  commands  and  prohibitions  which  admit  of 
now  and  then  an  exception  ;  the  spirit  of  the  rule,  or  the  inten- 
tion which  it  is  designed  to  manifest  and  fulfil,  being  supposed 
to  require  another  external  action  than  that  by  which  it  is  ordi- 
narily expressed  (§72).  The  moving  story  which  ^^^^  ^^j^ 
is  told  in  the  letters  of  Pliny  may  answer  for  a  great  in  Piiny's 
variety  of  cases,  unlike  in  their  details,  but  similar 
in  principle.  The  husband  of  Arria  was  very  dangerously  ill 
at  the  same  time  with  two  of  their  sons.  The  father  inquired 
often  concerning  these  sons,  and  her  answers  were  uniformly 
encouraging.  One  of  the  sons  died  just  as  the  father  had 
reached  the  crisis  of  his  disease.  The  mother  wiped  away 
her  tears,  and  approached  the  sick-bed  of  her  husband  with  a 
cheerful  air  ;  and,  as  he  inquired  after  her  son,  she  replied,  "He 
is  better,'*  and  rushed  from  the  room  unable  to  restrain  her 
grief.  Was  such  a  falsehood  criminal?  There  are  few  who 
will  say  that  it  was.  Physicians  are  often  brought  into  extrem- 
ities as  pressing  as  this.  The  same  is  true  of  those  who  have 
the  care  of  weaklings  from  passion,  intemperance,  partial  mania, 
or  nervous  prostration. 

Promises,  too,  tire  often  extorted  by  threats  of  exposure  of 
evil  to  others,  or  by  threats  of  violence  or  murder.    „ 

'  "^  Promises 

Are  falsehoods  criminal  under    circumstances   like  extorted  by 

these  ?     May  promises  of  the  above-named  classes, 

or  of  any  other,  be  broken  ?    Under  the  pressure  of  cases  so 


426  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL   SCIENCE.  [§  231. 

extreme,  novel  and  special  —  not  to  say  far-fetched  —  principles 
are  sometimes  sought  for  or  resorted  to,  in  order  to  furnish 
relief  from  those  obligations  to  veracity  and  covenant-keeping 
which  ordinarily  hold  good.  For  example,  it  is  urged,  that  a 
promise  made  to  a  robber  is  made  to  one  who  is  humani  generis 
hostis^  with  whom  no  promise  is  binding ;  or,  if  it  is  extorted 
by  threats,  it  is  unlawfully  obtained,  and  therefore  has  no  ele- 
ment of  moral  authority.  Against  these  reasons  the  supposed 
Divine  will  is  cited,  which  is  assumed  to  require  a  literal  com- 
pliance with  the  prescription  to  literal  veracity ;  and  the  duty 
of  confidence  in  God  as  the  special  guardian  of  truth,  even 
under  the  most  trying  and  doubtful  cases,  is  assumed  as  reliev- 
ing every  doubt,  and  prescribing  literal  truth  in  every  conceiv- 
able complication.  To  all  these  attempts  to  enforce  absolute 
rules,  with  no  real  or  apparent  exceptions,  it  is  enough  to  reply, 
that  in  respect  to  the  rule  of  veracity,  as  in  regard  to  every 
other  rule  of  external  conduct,  exceptio  2irohat  regulam.  The  act 
and  spirit  of  love  and  uprightness  should  be  supreme  and  abso- 
lute in  controlling  our  communications  with  our  fellow-men. 
No  deviation  from  literal  veracity  should  be  allowed  which  may 
weaken,  or  tend  to  weaken,  their  confidence  in  us  or  in  our 
fellows,  nor  any  which  should  weaken  or  set  aside  the  habit  in 
ourselves  of  a  frank  and  ready  utterance  of  the  literal  truth  in 
our  daily  speech.  A  liar  is  always  intensely  selfish,  and  usually 
more  or  less  of  a  coward.  The  man  who  is  controlled  by  the 
law  of  duty  will  fail  neither  in  spirit  nor  in  act  to  speak  the 
truth  in  his  heart  and  with  his  words,  whenever  his  words  have 
any  importance  in  respect  to  that  confidence  which  is  a  sacred 
necessity  in  the  intercourse  of  man  with  man. 

§  231.  The  question  is  also  often  urged,  whether  promises 
Are  romises  ^^®  ^^  ^^^  "^^  binding  in  the  many  cases  in  which 
ai>Yay8  the  circumstanccs  under  which  they  were  made  have 

"^  very  greatly  changed  from  those  which  were  antici- 

pated when  the  promise  was  given.  The  diflSculty  of  deciding 
whether,  in  view  of  these  changes,  one  or  both  of  the  parties 


§231.]  DUTIES  OF  TRUTH,    OR   VERACITY,  427 

maybe  released,  arises  from  the  difficulty  of  determining  whether 
it  was  implied  and  practically  understood,  at  the  time  when  the 
promise  was  given,  that  under  any  contingency  the  promise 
might  become  invalid.  This  question  is  often  very  difficult  to 
decide,  and  the  parties  to  the  promise  will  often  take  opposite 
sides  in  accordance  with  their  opposing  interests.  The  equity 
of  each  case  can  only  be  reached  by  an  intimate  knowledge 
of  a  great  variety  of  circumstances.  Difficulties  of  this  sort 
always  seem  to  be  unfortunate ,  and  the  want  of  clearness  and 
authority  in  the  opinions  of  casuists,  and  their  failures  to  find 
solid  principles  by  which  to  decide  special  cases,  is  often  urged 
against  the  sacredness  of  moral  distinctions  and  the  supreme 
authority  of  the  moral  law.  Such  a  conclusion  is  obviously 
unjust,  and  may  be  seen  to  be  so  on  the  slightest  reflection. 
The  intention  or  purpose  required  is  never  doubtful ;  the  only 
possible  question  which  can  arise  pertains  to  the  external  act 
or  sacrifice  which  each  party  is  bound  to  make  by  the  rule  or 
test  which  is,  on  the  whole,  the  most  just  and  salutary.  The 
immense  advantage  of  emphasizing  the  intention  as  distin- 
guished from  the  external  act,  and  of  disciplining  the  indi- 
vidual and  the  race  to  look  at  all  questions  of  casuistry  from 
both  sides,  immeasurably  counterbalances  all  the  objections 
against  admitting  an  exception  to  a  moral  rule  which  is  nearly 
universal.  The  glory  and  strength  of  the  law  of  duty  is  found 
in  the  fact  that  it  is  spiritual  and  internal,  and  can  adapt  itself 
to  the  varying  conditions  of  mankind  in  its  external  commands 
concerning  both  words  and  deeds.  While  it  enforces  the  strictest 
compliance  with  the  letter  whenever  the  integrity  of  a  man  is 
to  be  tested  or  tried  by  external  fidelity  in  a  word  or  act,  it 
is  tolerant  and  charitable  in  the  extreme  whenever  ignorance 
or  weakness,  or  any  of  the  manifold  limitations  of  ignorance  or 
weaKness,  require  its  lenient  judgment. 


428  ELEMENTS  OF  MOBAL  SCIENCE.     [§§  232,  233. 


CHAPTER  XL 

DUTIES  OF  GENERAL  BENEFICENCE. 

§  232.  The  law  of  benevolence  commands  us  to  love  all  our 
Duties  fellow-men.     This  applies  to  the  will  and  affections, 

already  to  the   disposition  and  character.     When  this  be- 

proT  e  or.  jjgyQjgjj^^g  jg  expressed  in  acts  that  promote  their 
welfare,  it  becomes  beneficence.  The  law  of  beneficence  com- 
mands us  to  do  good  to  our  fellows  as  we  have  opportunity,  for 
the  reasons  already  given,  and  to  do  so  by  external  actions,  — 
by  words  and  deeds  of  kindness,  and  useful  effect,  as  manifes- 
tations and  realizations  of  our  feelings.  Both  these  laws,  as 
we  have  seen,  when  blended  into  one,  require  us  in  heart  and 
deed  to  concede  to  our  fellows  their  rights,  and  to  be  truthful 
in  our  communications  and  promises.  Benevolence,  when  it 
concedes  and  respects  the  claims  and  rights  of  men,  becomes 
justice.  Justice  and  truth  are  among  the  cardinal  virtues,  inas- 
much as  upon  the  practice  of  both,  society  depends  for  its 
integrity,  its  order,  and  its  security,  and  all  the  blessings  which 
are  essential  to  human  civilization.  These  duties  we  have 
already  discussed. 

§  233.  But  these  are  not  all  the  duties  which  men  owe  their 
Knmberand  fellow-men.  The  general  duties  of  men  to  one 
Tarietyof  another  are  by  no  means  limited  to  justice  and 
yet  to  be  vcracity.  There  is  a  great  variety  of  other  offices 
considered,  which  men  are  capable  of  performing,  and  to  which 
they  are  prompted  by  the  impulses  of  sympathy.     TJiey  can 


§234.]         DUTIES  OF  GENEEAL  BENEFICENCE.  429 

supply  the  wants  of  their  fellows^  they  can  assist  them  in  their 
labors^  they  can  comfort  them  in  their  sorrows,  they  can  rescue 
them  from  ignorance,  they  can  reform  their  manners,  they  can 
prevent  and  recover  them  from  vice  and  crime.  All  these  duties 
are  included  in  and  enforced  by  the  moral  obligation  to  love. 
It  is  not  always  easy  to  decide  to  whom  these  duties  are  espe- 
cially owed,  nor  by  what  methods  we  may  best  discharge  the 
duties  which  we  acknowledge.  It  is  most  important,  however, 
that  we  recognize  each  of  these  obligations  in  whatever  form  it 
presents  itself,  arid  understand  the  reasons  which  enforce  it.  ^ 
§  234.  There  are  not  a  few  theorizers  who  deny  the  obliga- 
tion to  any  duties  of  beneficence  proper,  beyond  Theorists 
those  which  are  imposed  by  natural  justice  or  politi-  "^^^  deny  any 

^  -^  ->  ^  positive  obli- 

cal  necessity  or  the  relations  of  kindred,  which,  gationto 
somehow,  —  but  how,  they  do  not  explain, — seem  these  duties, 
to  impose  some  sort  of  claim  which  it  is  hard  to  deny,  even  with 
the  aid  of  a  well-compacted  and  otherwise  plausible  theory. 
The  moralists  and  publicists  of  the  school  of  Hobbes  denied 
that  man  has  any  disinterested  affection  for  his  fellow,  and 
asserted  that  man  is  naturally  hostile  to  his  kind.  They 
logically  deduced  all  obligations  of  helpfulness  and  co-opera- 
tion from  the  simple  necessity  of  combination  against  a  com- 
mon foe,  and  failed  to  recognize  any  duty  whatever  as  springing 
from  sympathy  or  affection,  for  which  they  found  no  place  in 
man's  nature,  and  no  justification  except  as  a  disguised  form 
of  selfishness. 

The  sociologist  of  the  evolutionist  school  recognizes  under 
the  name  of  altruism  a  derived  form  of  love  to  ^^^  altruism 
man ;  but  he  limits  its  operation  to  love  for  the  of  modern 
community  as  given  up  to  the  freest  and  fullest  play 
of  the  struggle  for  existence  terminating  in  the  survival  of  the 
fittest.  Altruism,  moreover,  when  explained  by  this  system, 
is  as  truly  a  developed  or  derived  affection  under  the  processes 
of  association,  and  the  interaction  of  hostile  elements,  as  the 
same  affection  under  another  name  in  the  school  of   Hobbes. 


430  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL   SCIENCE.  [§  234. 

They  conteDd  simply  for  the  freest  recognition  of  the  so-called 
natural  rights,  and  all  others  which  grow  out  of  a  highly  organ- 
ized and  dififerentiated  social  system.  Love  and  duty,  in  their 
theory,  are  satisfied  under  the  desire  and  claim  of  each  indi- 
vidual to  be  let  alone  that  he  may  care  for  himself.  So  soon 
as  these  rights  are  responded  to,  they  forbid  the  individual  or 
the  community  to  act  singly  or  organized  for  the  help  of  the 
public  or  the  individual,  as  being  injurious  to  both  the  giver 
and  the  receiver,  and  an  offence  against  the  fundamental  law  of 
individual  and  social  development.  In  fact,  if  not  in  form,  they 
contend  that  the  inculcation  of  the  duty  to  help  one's  neighbor 
is  now  behind  the  times,  and  rebuked  by  all  sound  philosophi- 
cal teachings.  The  comprehensive  maxim  which  they  recognize 
as  the  sum  of  duty  in  loving  our  neighbor  is  simply  this :  to 
The  struggle  ^^^.ve  him  alone  in  the  enjoyment  of  his  rights,  and 
for  existence,  to  let  him  struggle  and  shift  for  himself  in  provid- 
ing for  his  wants',  without  asking  for  either  co-operation  or 
sympathy.  This  doctrine  is  an  exaggerated  misapplication  of 
certain  theories  of  social  science  in  respect  to  the  administra- 
tion of  public  charities,  the  expediency  of  governmental  action 
in  education,  and  manifold  other  organized  enterprises  for  the 
common  good.  Many  of  these  enterprises  which  were  organ- 
ized with  the  best  intentions,  and  commenced  with  glowing 
zeal  and  sanguine  hopes,  have  failed  to  realize  the  expectations 
of  their  originators,  or  proved  examples  of  the  certain  failure 
of  movements  undertaken  on  false  social  or  economic  prin- 
ciples. From  the  partial  or  total  failure  of  such  enterprises, 
or  their  unfaithful  administration  for  lack  of  supervision  or 
fidelity,  the  conclusion  has  been  reached,  that  the  public  welfare 
is  most  effectually  promoted  in  every  particular,  by  leaving 
every  man  to  act  and  sacrifice  for  himself,  and  allowing  his 
neighbor  to  do  the  same.  This  reasoning  also  assumes  that 
there  is  a  natural  sphere  of  self-relying  activity  assigned  to 
every  man  by  the  progress  of  evolution,  and  fixed  by  the 
temporary  permanence  of  his  organic  life,  within  which  he  has 


§  235.]        DUTIES  OF  GENERAL  BENEFICENCE.  431 

acknowledged  rights,  i.e.,  the  necessary  conditions  for  inde- 
pendent activity  and  development.  Within  this  sphere  he 
needs  no  help,  should  ask  and  receive  no  favors,  can  be  bene- 
fited by  no  co-operation,  and  cheered  and  comforted  by  no 
sympathy. 

§  235.  How  conspicuously  untrue  this  theory  is  to  the  facts 
of  human  nature,  and  the  requirements  of  human 
experience,  need  hardly  be  argued.  It  is  certainly  natural  and 
true,  that,  in  the  family  in  which  man  begins  his  necessary  to 
existence,  man  is  dependent  upon  his  fellow,  and 
asks  aid  by  appeals  that  call  forth  the  interchange  of  sympathy 
and  help.  Moreover,  the  help  which  he  most  needs  and  soonest 
receives  is  sympathy,  as  expressed  to  and  for  himself.  In  this 
condition  he  passes  many  years  of  his  life.  The  same  is  true 
of  the  adult  man.  In  every  one  of  his  movements  and  labors 
and  hopes  and  disappointments,  he  craves  and  needs  something 
which  his  fellow-man  can  do  for  him  and  can  give  to  him.  The 
man  who  responds  to  these  appeals  with  emotional  sympathy 
and  practical  aid  blesses  "  him  that  gives  and  him  that  takes." 
Not  merely  is  this  true  between  man  and  man  as  individuals, 
but  it  is  true  between  man  and  man  as  united  in  social  organ- 
isms. Indeed,  the  civilized  man  needs  and  can  receive  the 
help  of  his  fellow-man  a  thousandfold  more  than  the  savage, 
for  the  reason  that  he  is  civilized ;  his  wants  being  multiplied 
immensely  by  that  very  circumstance,  and  his  dependence  on 
the  co-operation  of  a  greater  number  of  his  fellow-men  being 
more  absolute.  He  is  also  more  sensitive  to  deprivation  than 
the  man  in  a  less  highly  organized  community,  and  for  this 
reason  pleads  more  loudl}^  for  sympathy  or  assistance.  Per- 
sonally he  is  feebler  in  consequence  of  his  artificial  life,  though 
organically  he  may  be  immensely  stronger :  as  when,  for,  ex- 
ample, by  a  touch  of  his  finger  he  can  explode  a  mine  that  will 
destroy  a  thousand  lives  ;  or  send  a  telegram  that  will  devastate 
a  kingdom,  or  bless  an  empire,  whose  people  are  numbered  by 
millions. 


432  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL  SCIENCE.  [§  236. 

But  even  in  these  cases  the  willing  and  personal  co-operation 
Co-operative  ^^  multitudes  of  men  must  all  be  counted  on,  or 
action  more  the  chain  of  blcssing  is  broken.  The  wires  of  the 
modern  telegraph  may  be  cut,  or  demoralization  may  dis- 

society.  integrate   an   army  on  which   the  ruler  has  relied. 

Manifold  events  may  interrupt  the  functions  of  this  compli- 
cated organic  life.  It  would  also  seem,  in  one  aspect  of  the 
operation  of  evolution,  that,  as  every  member  of  the  community 
becomes  more  highly  individualized,  each  must  come  into  a 
more  various  and  sensitive  need  of  the  assistance  and  sympathy 
of  his  fellow-men ;  and  for  this  reason,  the  obligation  on  the 
part  of  both  to  give  and  receive  help  must  necessarily  be  intensi- 
fied. What  this  theory  should  require  is  true  in  fact.  The 
more  highly  man  is  civilized,  and  the  more  sensitively  he  feels 
himself  to  be  a  part  of  an  organism,  the  more  numerous  are 
the  needs  which  his  fellow-men  are  able,  and  thereby  are  morally 
obliged,  to  supply.  For  these  reasons  we  conclude,  that  under 
the  law  of  benevolence,  in  every  condition  of  existence,  and  at 
every  stage  of  development,  men  are  bound  to  supply  many  of 
the  wants  of  their  fellows,  and  to  lend  them  co-operation  and 
sympathy.  Moreover,  this  obligation  is  increased,  rather  than 
weakened,  by  the  exigencies  of  artificial  life,  and  the  complica- 
tions of  modern  society. 

§  236.  Four  generic  cases  may  be  supposed  to 
cases  of  need  arise,  cach  of  which  furnishes  a  ground  for  a  spe- 
*    "^  ^'  cial  rule  of  beneficent  action. 

(1)  The  first  is  that  of  indolent  want.  My  fellow-man  is  in 
(1)  Indolent  Want,  but  Is  able  to  help  himself.  He  has  insuflS- 
trant.  cicnt  food,  or  clothing,  or  fuel,  or  medical  service. 

He  is  able  to  supply  these  needs  ;  but  he  is  improvident,  or  lazy, 
or  deliberately  determined  that  his  neighbors  or  the  community 
shall  furnish  him  the  living  which  the  \^orld  owes  him,  as  he 
practically  claims.  If  the  case  is  individual,  and  no  one  is  the 
sufferer  but  himself,  he  certainly  ought  not  to  be  relieved, 
except  for  the  moment.     His  physical  wants  may  be  real,  but 


§  237.]       DUTIES  OF  GENERAL  BENEFICENCE.  433 

his  moral  wants  are  more  serious ;  and  these  can  only  be 
relieved  by  starvation,  or  cold,  or  severe  neglect,  or,  if  the 
laws  provide,  by  penal  infliction.  No  moral  obligation  rests  on 
the  individual  or  the  community  to  relieve  the  actual  wants  of 
every  man  who  is  in  need,  simply  because  he  suffers.  It  may 
be  and  it  often  is  true,  that  his  most  serious  wants  can  be 
most  effectually  relieved  by  denying  him  such  relief,  and  for- 
cing him  to  labor  for  himself,  or  subjecting  him  to  punishment. 
§  237.  (2)  The  second  case,  we  may  suppose,  is  that  of 
necessary  and  useful  co-operative  action.  By  com-  (g)  Mutual 
bined  activity,  ten  or  a  hundred  men  can  accomplish  co-opcation. 
what  a  thousand  men  acting  singly  can  never  effect.  The  need 
may  be  the  simple  union  of  individual  personal  energies,  in 
order  to  effect  a  desirable  object :  the  need  is  social,  but  still  it 
is  as  real  a  need  as  the  presence  or  agency  of  a  combination  of 
many  physical  elements  or  forces  to  accomplish  a  physical  effect 
which  is  acknowledged  to  be  good.  The  occasions  are  manifold 
in  which  the  aggregation  of  physical  force,  or  pecuniary  aid, 
or  personal  sympathy,  is  essential  to  the  achievement  of  some 
public  benefit.  Whenever  the  consenting  activity  of  many  is 
imperatively  required,  union  emphatically  becomes  strength, 
and  co-operation  for  tlie  public  welfare  is  an  instant  duty. 
The  influence  of  public  sentiment,  as  asserted  and  sustained  by 
the  consenting  and  uttered  voice  of  all  the  individuals  of  a  com- 
munity, is  another  example  of  social  and  sympathetic  power. 
In  every  case  of  this  sort,  eve^^y  man  will  feel,  whatever  his 
theory  may  be,  that  benevolence  requires  that  he  should  supply 
the  public  want,  which  is  none  the  less  real  because  the  public 
is  a  sufferer  in  the  persons  of  its  individual  members,  and  the 
want  can  only  be  supplied  by  the  combined  activities  of  a  score^^ 
or  a  thousand  individuals.  The  maxim  used  in  such  cases,  and 
justified  by  the  professed  theories  of  some  moralists, — Every 
man  fo^r  himself,  —  is  not  only  meanly  selfish,  but  essentially 
immoral ;  because  it  rests  on  an  essentially  untrue  assumption, 
that  every  man  can,  if  he  will,  live  and  act  for  himself  alone. 


434  ELEMENTS  OF  MOBAL  SCIENCE.  [§  237. 

When  every  man  sets  up  for  himself,  and  practically  or  theo- 
retically isolates  himself  from  his  kind,  every  man  suffers 
more  or  less,  as  God  or  nature  has  made  us  "members  one 
of  another.^'  It  is  literally  true  in  every  sense,  that  "  no  man 
liveth  to  himself,  and  no  man  dieth  to  himself."  It  follows, 
that  a  forward  and  sympathizing  public  spirit  in  supplying  the 
wants  of  the  community  is  in  a  certain  sense  morally  impera- 
tive. The  command  is  of  the  highest  authority,  "Look  not 
every  man  on  his  own  things,  but  every  man  also  on  the 
things  of  others."  Similarly,  in  smaller  communities  and 
limited  neighborhoods,  the  duty  of  co-operation  in  the  supply 
of  the  wants  of  our  fellow-men,  which  are  common  to  them 
and  ourselves,  is,  if  possible,  more  obvious. 

The  duty  of  co-operation  as  a  source  of  united  strength  is  so  obvious  for 

reasons  both  of  morality  and  self-interest,  as  to  induce  many 
to-operatloit  ^yj-jters  on  ethics  and  economics  to  contend  that  private 
jgjjj^  ownership  of  property  should  be  abolished,  and  that  all  the 

operations  of  domestic  and  social  labor  should  be  conducted 
on  the  principle  of  partnership.  The  impracticability  of  devising  any 
feasible  scheme  for  the  administration  of  such  a  theory,  and  the  actual 
failure  of  most  of  the  communistic  associations  which  have  been  put  into 
operation,  have  brought  them  into  general  disfavor. 

By  a  natural  re-action  they  have  induced  not  a  few  publicists  to  deny 

that  the  public  welfare  is  promoted  by  co-operation  of  any 
Estrpme  of       i^\j^([  ijeyond  that  which  is  involved  in  the  most  limited  and 

self- regarding  business  partnership.  These  considerations 
have  even  been  carried  farther,  and  induced  some  writers  to  contend  that 
co-operation  of  every  sort,  except  as  it  is  dictated  by  the  most  interested 
policy,  is  hostile  both  to  the  individual  and  the  public  welfare.  No  man 
who  recognizes  any  moral  obligation  whatever,  as  it  would  seem,  can  pos- 
sibly deny  that  every  individual  ought  to  be  willing  to  help  his  fellow-men. 
The  only  point  which  is  open  to  question  is,  whether  man  is  capable  of 
being  helped  ;  that  is,  whether,  in  the  long-run,  to  attempt  or  to  seem  to 
help  him,  is  not,  in  fact,  to  hinder  and  embarrass  him.  It  is  no  answer 
to  this  question,  as  a  question  of  practical  ethics,  to  say  that,  in  general, 
the  individual  and  the  coinnmnity  will  thrive  most  effectively  when  their 
activities  are  conducted  on  "  business  principles,"  and  each  man  looks  out 
for  himself.  So  long  as  union  is  strength,  and  so  long  also  as  co-<'peration 
oftentimes  multiplies  energy,  and  frequently  in  a  geometrical  ratio,  so  long 
is  it  the  duty  of  men  to  impart  to  one  another  assistance  of  every  descrip- 


§238.]         DUTIES  OF  GENERAL  BENEFICENCE.  435 

tion  in  activities,  advice,  and  sympathy,  in  the  varied  departments  of  life. 
For  this  we  have  the  most  attractive  examples  which  the  world  has  ever 
seen,  and  have  reason  to  know  that  the  established  law  of  human  welfare 
is  a  law  of  generous  co-oi)eration  between  man  and  man  in  their  organized 
and  individual  capacity.  But  while  this  is  true  in  general,  and  a  most  im- 
portant truth,  it  is  also  true,  that  the  extent  to  which  organized  co-opera- 
tion can  be  prosecuted  with  success  can  be  determined  only  by  instructed 
experience.  We  find  overwhelming  reasons  to  conclude  that  communistic 
principles  can  never  take  the  place  of  separate  ownership  in  property,  or 
supersede  the  family,  or  set  aside  civil  government.  On  the  other  hand, 
the  evidence  is  constantly  accumulating,  that  the  principles  of  co-opera- 
tion may  be  safely  and  wisely  applied  in  ways  which  are  as  yet  untried, 
and  with  a  success  which  has  never  yet  been  dreamed  of.  That  there 
will  always  be  occasion  for  help  and  sympathy  from  man  to  man,  we  are 
confident,  from  what  we  know  of  human  nature  and  the  tendencies  of 
human  history  as  these  reveal  the  plans  and  processes  of  nature  and  of 
God.  We  cannot  conceive  it  possible  that  the  best  ends  of  man's  moral 
education  and  the  best  use  of  his  powers  can  ever  be  accomplished,  except 
as  every  individual  shall  be  constantly  summoned  to  help  his  neighbor  in 
constant  proffers  and  services  of  good,  and  never-ceasing  ministrations  of 
sympathy. 

§  238.  (3)  The  third  class  of  opportunities  for  help  are  cases 
of  unavoidable  calamity  or  misfortune.  To  these  (S)  unavoida- 
should  be  added  the  more  serious,  and  often  more  **^®  calamity, 
hopeless,  cases  of  ignorance  and  vice.  Calamity  and  misfor- 
tune abound  in  human  society.  To  a  large  extent,  but  not 
wholly,  they  are  the  result  of  want  of  foresight,  or  want  of 
self-control.  The  evils  which  men  suffer  are  largely  the  con- 
sequences of  imprudence,  or  indolence,  or  passion,  or  appetite. 
These  consequences  are  designed  to  protect  and  warn  against 
the  individual  and  social  offences  which  are  committed  against 
natural  and  social  laws.  It  does  not  follow,  however,  that 
these  sufferings  should  not,  in  many  cases,  be  alleviated  or  re- 
moved by  human  kindness  and  sympathy  and  help.  Even  if 
this  were  the  rule  so  far  as  the  responsible  parties  are  con- 
cerned, it  would  not  apply  to  the  larger  number  of  those  who 
are  innocent  sufferers  by  the  fault  of  others.  The  economy 
of  social  life  is  not  an  economy  of  pitiless  retribution  only : 
it  includes   an   economy   of    recovery   and   pardon   for  many 


436  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL   SCIENCE.  [§  239. 

offences  against  a  multitude  of  laws,  —  laws  physical  and  laws 
moral. 

For  responsible  and  irresponsible  sufferers,  the  appeal  for  sym- 
The  impulse  pathy  and  help  is  constantly  uttered  to  the  benevo- 
of  pity.  igut  impulse,  and  enforced  by  the  aid  of  a  special 

sensibility  of  responsive  pity.  The  impulse  is  one  of  the  most 
powerful  emotions  that  move  the  soul  of  man,  the  most  diffi- 
cult to  resist  when  it  is  in  action,  and  the  most  obstinate  in  its 
tenacity,  even  when  frequently  resisted  and  persistently  over- 
come. The  man  who  would  resist  and  overcome  this  im- 
pulse does  violence  to  one  of  the  strongest  and  most  tenacious 
forces  of  his  being.  This  fact  alone  by  no  means  invests  it 
with  a  right  of  supreme  control ;  but  it  indicates  that  it  was 
designed  sometimes  to  govern  the  actions,  and  ought  sometimes 
to  have  sway  and  room  in  the  heart  and  over  the  conduct  of 
the  individual  and  the  community.  Following  the  rule  already 
accepted,  that  every  one  of  the  emotions  should  sometimes  pre- 
vail, and  find  a  sphere  of  influence  and  effect,  we  conclude  that 
human  suffering  and  sorrow  ought  at  least  sometimes  to  be 
relieved.  When,  and  how  often,  can  only  be  decided  by  the 
special  circumstances  of  the  sufferer,  and  the  other  demands 
upon  the  benevolence  of  his  friend  or  neighbor. 

§  239.  Should  this  relief  ever  be  individual,  or  should  it 
Individual  always  be  organized?  Conceding  that  it  is  both 
effort.  right   and  expedient,  as  modern  experience  would 

teach,  that  the  relief  of  misfortune  should,  to  a  large  extent,  he 
rendered  by  organized  charity,  it  still  remains  true  that  such 
relief  should  very  often  be  furnished  by  the  agency  of  indi- 
viduals. Relief  of  this  description  is  often  to  be  preferred  to 
any  which  can  be  imparted  by  social  organization,  in  being 
more  intelligent,  more  discriminating,  and,  above  all,  more 
abundant  in  sympathy.  It  is  eminently  true  that  charity  thus 
administered  is  twice  blessed  :  "  it  blessetli  him  that  gives,  and 
him  that  takes,"  blessing  him  that  takes  with  the  priceless 
element  of  personal  love  and  sympathy,  and  blessing  him  that 


§240.]         DUTIES  OF  GENERAL  BENEFICENCE.  437 

gives  with  manifold  experiences  of  that  peculiar  good  which 
attends  unselfish  ministrations  of  any  kind.  The  remark  of 
Dr.  Thomas  Arnold  will  always  hold  good  for  all  men,  that 
"prayer,  and  the  visitation  of  the  poor,  seem  both  to  be  neces- 
sary to  keep  a  man  in  his  right  place  of  duty  and  temper  with 
respect  to  himself  ancl^his  God.'* 

§  240.  (4)  Another  form  of  want  is  that  of  ignorance  or  vice. 
The  want  in  either  of  these  cases  is  actual,  and  none    ^^^  ^ 

(4)  Igno- 

the  less  but  the  more  serious  for  the  reason  that  the  ranee  and 
sufferer  is  unaware  of  his  need,  and  never  can  fully  ^*^®* 
appreciate  its  extent,  and,  maybe,  is  offended  and  enraged  by 
proffered  help.  The  duty  is  certainly  none  the  less  real,  and 
none  the  less  imperative,  because  it  is  difficult  to  be  discharged. 
The  extremity  of  the  need  is  often  an  urgent  reason  why  the 
duty  of  relief  should  be  rendered  with  the  greatest  efficiency. 
Duties  of  this  sort  are  among  the  most  important  which  we 
owe  to  our  fellow-men.  Ignorance  limits  and  enfeebles  the 
intellect,  degrades  and  perverts  the  sensibilities,  and  misleads 
and  hardens  the  will.  Vice  fixes  the  man  in  voluntary  and 
shameless  bestial  degradation.  Either  by  itself,  or  both  united, 
degrade  and  weaken  humanity,  lower  the  social  tone,  dry  up 
the  sources  of  individual  and  public  wealth,  prepare  the  way 
for  physical  calamities,  and  diminish  or  destroy  the  public 
vitality.  If  men  owe  any  duties  to  their  fellow-men,  they  are 
under  obligation  to  remove  these  fountains  of  evil  so  far  as 
they  can. 

The  difficulties  are  peculiar  in  consequence  of  the  fact  that 
the  ignorant  are  satisfied  with  their  condition,  either  because 
they  do  not  believe  that  they  are  capable  of  any  thing  better,  or, 
more  frequently,  because  they  do  not  practically  conceive  of 
the  better  as  possible.  Complete  or  well-nigh  perfect  ignorance 
may  be  confounded  with  knowledge  and  the  satisfaction  which 
attends  it ;  but  its  completeness  is  exemplified  by  its  incapacity 
to  believe  or  appreciate  any  thing  higher  or  better  than  its  own 
degradation.     Vice   is  often,  not  to  say  usually,   aroused  to 


438  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL  SCIENCE.     [§§241,242. 

hatred  and  envy  and  selfish  passion,  by  the  efforts  which  are 
made  for  its  abandonment  and  cure. 

§  241.  These   difficulties   enforce,  rather  than  weaken,   the 
duty  of  the  instructed  and  virtuous  to  reclaim  and 

Obligation  to  *^ 

prevent,  as  rccovcr  thosc  of  their  neighbors  who  are  in  this  des- 
truiy  as  to      peratc  plight.     They  are  morally  bound  to  do  them 

recover  from,    a  *     c?  j  j 

Ignorance  good  in  thcsc  particulars,  to  the  utmost  of  their 
power.  They  are  also  equally  bound,  and  some- 
times by  an  added  obligation,  to  prevent  these  evils  and  the 
causes  of  them.  Ignorance  as  a  prevailing  calamity,  by  its  very 
nature,  can  be  more  effectually  prevented  than  it  can  be  healed. 
The  same  is  true  of  vice.  The  power  of  habit  and  of  social 
influences  is  such  as  to  open  the  way  for  instruction  and  moral 
influence  with  the  young,  and  to  indicate  that  efforts  directed  to 
their  culture  are  likely  to  succeed.  While  every  effort  may  be 
thwarted  and  fail  by  reason  of  the  perversion  of  the  individual 
will,  yet  the  advantages  of  knowledge  and  of  the  power  of  self- 
restraint  are  such  as  to  compel  the  confidence,  and  to  force  the 
consent,  of  a  generation  of  youth  to  which  the  proper  appliances 
are  presented  with  moderate  fidelity  and  skill.  Hence  the  obli- 
gation to  use  these  appliances,  and  to  favor  them,  in  respect  to 
the  young,  is  inexorable  and  supreme.  No  one  can  love  his 
neighbor  as  himself,  in  any  sense,  who  does  not  endeavor  to 
save  the  children  and  youth  of  his  neighborhood,  and  it  may  be 
of  his  country,  from  ignorance  and  vice. 

§  242.  The  duty  and  right  of  the  community  as  organized  into  civil  gov- 
Permanent  ernment,  to  prevent  and  remove  ignorance  and  vice  by  means 
occasion  for  of  public  arrangements,  will  be  considered  in  its  place.  We 
individual  are  at  present  concerned  with  the  dutj'  in  these  directions  of 
activity.  ^j^^  individual  man,  and  of  men  as  voluntarily  associated  to 

extirpate  and  prevent  those  formidable  evils.  It  can  hardly  be  contended 
that  any  public  arrangements,  however  skilfully  devised  and  effectively 
applied,  can  supersede  the  necessity  and  duty  of  individual  activity  to  its 
utmost  in  addition  to  all  that  the  public  can  do.  Public  economies  can 
never  dispense  with  individual  fidelity  and  zeal.  The  more  elaborate  and 
complete  they  may  be,  the  more  indispensable  need  is  there  of  individual 
zeal  and  activity.    The  advautage  of  individual  and  i)ersoual  relief  over 


§243.]         DUTIES  OF  GENEBAL  BENEFICENCE.  439 

that  which  is  organized  and  official,  as  has  already  heen  suggested,  is  that 
it  furnishes  an  opportunity  for  a  more  exact  knowledge  of  the  wants  of  the 
person  who  is  assisted,  and  for  the  exercise  of  personal  sympathy  in  the  act 
of  relief.  While  in  many  cases  it  may  be  better  for  the  recipient,  and 
better  for  his  benefactor,  that  he  should  receive  assistance  through  a  public 
agent,  there  are  also  many  in  which  the  assistance  loses  more  than  half  its 
value  if  it  is  not  prompted  and  directed  by  such  a  knowledge  of  the  wants 
or  sorrows  of  the  recipient  as  only  an  individual  can  attain.  In  many 
cases,  also,  the  assistance  most  needed  is  that  personal  sympathy  which 
only  one  individual  can  impart  to  another.  This  is  especially  true  when 
the  needs  to  be  supplied  and  the  wants  to  be  relieved  are  such  moral  wants 
as  only  personal  knowledge  and  personal  love  can  understand  or  reach. 
Whatever  may  be  the  improvements  attained  and  achieved  in  the  admin- 
istration of  charities  of  every  kind,  the  time  will  never  come  when  indi- 
vidual agencies  and  individual  administration  will  not  be  required,  and 
when  individual  service  will  not  be  a  duty.  The  principles  by  which  indi- 
vidual duties  to  special  classes  of  individuals  may  be  determined,  so  far  as 
these  can  be  expressed  in  language  or  embodied  in  rules,  still  remain  to  be 
discussed. 

§  243.     Besides  the  individual  needs  of  ignorance  and  vice, 
which  can  be  most  advantageously  met  by  individual 
effort,  there  are  also  social  needs  of  both  descriptions  for  social 
which  require  united  and  vigorous  social  movements  ™  a\^™t^°*f 
in  the  way  of  prevention  and  reform.     There  are  noranceand 
many  reasons  why  the  state  in  its  organized  capacity 
can  perform  these  functions  only  to  a  limited  extent.     A  wide 
margin  is  consequently  left  for  voluntary  activity  in  the  asso- 
ciated movements  of  individual  men.    These  too  have  their  lim- 
itations and  obligations.     The  object  of  such  efforts  is  to  arouse 
public  attention  to  facts  that  have  been  overlooked,  —  perhaps 
in  the  light  of  principles  which  have  been  disregarded,  —  and 
to  awaken  feelings  of  condemnation  or  alarm  which  had  been 
either  repressed  or  weakened,  in  order  to  excite  individuals  and 
the  public  to  repentance  or  reformation.     Feudal  subjection, 
domestic  slavery,  the  use  and  sale  of  alcoholic  and  intoxicating 
liquors,   licentious  practices,   and  gambling   are   some   of  the 
vicious  institutions  and  practices  which  have  been  the  subjects 
of  these  social  reforms.     Many  general  abuses,  less  obnoxious 


440  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL   SCIENCE.  [§  244. 

in  their  moral  relations,  in  business,  politics,  manners,  and 
amusements,  have  also  been  made  the  subjects  of  social  ani- 
madversion and  discussion.  Such  associations  are  perfectly 
legitimate,  pre-eminently  when  they  are  organized  for  great 
moral  ends  and  under  pressing  moral  needs.  By  means  of 
them,  some  of  the  most  important  advances  of  the  last  half- 
century  have  been  achieved  in  political,  ethical,  and  social  bless- 
ings. It  is  more  than  probable,  that,  in  the  future,  they  will  be 
employed  with  a  still  more  manifest  and  beneficent  efficiency. 
The  influences  that  are  employed  are  the  social  sympathies  of 
man,  —  the  capacity  of  one  man  to  discern  and  feel  any  truth 
more  clearly  when  it  is  commended  to  his  conscience  by  the 
condemnation  of  any  of  his  fellow-men,  especially  if  enforced 
by  the  consenting  judgment  of  a  great  number.  This  is  pre- 
eminently true  when  the  truth  is  enforced  by  the  ardor  and 
earnestness  of  the  conscientious  convictions  of  enlightened  and 
honest  men.  So  potent  is  this  force,  that  it  has  been  taken  by 
a  numerous  school  of  philosophers  to  be  the  only  source  and 
strength  of  moral  truth.  *'  The  law  of  opinion  '*  (§  10),  as  it 
is  called  by  Locke,  has  always  energized  and  sustained  the  law 
of  conscience,  and  given  it  more  or  less  of  impulse  and  sup- 
port. It  follows,  that  the  ethical  principles  which  at  once 
enforce  and  regulate  the  employment  of  this  agency  should 
be  carefully  considered. 

§  244.  (1)  Such  movements  should  be  inspired  by  sound  ethical  feelings 
ConditlonR  of  ^^^  judgments  respecting  the  conduct  against  which  they  are 
success  :(1)  arrayed.  Reformers  of  every  kind  should  first  of  all  be  cer- 
The  evil  mast  tain  that  the  act  or  habit  or  institution  which  they  condemn  is, 
be  justly  g^  j^j.  g^  they  condemn  it,  in  fact  morally  wrong.    The  indis- 

criminate denunciation  of  many  outward  acts  or  practices  — 
as  theatre-going,  using  games  of  chance,  drinking  a  glass  of  wine,  or  the 
like  — is  itself  wrong,  and  can  never  suffice  as  the  watchword  of  a  success- 
ful social  movement,  for  the  reason  that  it  will  not  carry  the  convictions  of 
so  many  men,  for  a  considerable  time  at  least,  as  to  warrant  final  success. 
A  principle  overstated  or  falsely  stated,  or  the  extravagant  and  reckless  use 
of  facts,  is  certain  to  re-act  against  any  cause  in  whose  service  it  is  used, 
and  often  awakens  prejudices  and  distrust  against  all  reforming  orgaui- 


§  244.]         DUTIES  OF  GENERAL  BENEFICENCE.  441 

zations.  The  only  strength  of  such  a  movement  is  in  the  assent  of  the 
convicted  conscience  when  assailed  by  an  obvious  moral  truth  so  nearly 
axiomatic  as  to  command  ready  assent  and  universal  conviction. 

(2)  The  occasion  may  be  of  temporary  expediency  or  necessity.    If  so, 

the  reform  should  be  argued  on  this  ground,  and  no  other, 

with  all  the  force  which  the  occasion  will  justify.    Many    ^f  ^  '^''®  °^*^*" 

sion  may  be 
actions  and  customs,  which  are  in  themselves  personally  m-    temporary. 

nocent,  may  be  so  interwoven  and  overgrown  with  offensive 

and  injuriojis  associations  as  to  be  themselves  open  to  serious  objections. 

For  the  time,  such  practices  are  of  such  evil  influence  as  to  justify  a  social 

protest  against  them,  and  to  warrant  the  demand  for  a  total  disuse,  at 

least  for  a  time.    In  view  of  these  associations,  and  the  evils. which  would 

follow  were  they  allowed  without  a  protest,  it  may  be  a  duty  publicly  to 

protest  against  such  acts  and  customs  by  a  social  movement.    But  the 

grounds  of  such  a  protest  should  always  represent  the  actual  convictions 

of  those  who  share  and  express  them.    To  begin  or  to  urge  any  such 

movement  on  false  or  factitious  grounds,  is  bad  in  policy  and  worse  in 

m^orality.    To  undertake  to  manufacture  a  factitious  social  conscience,  or 

to  consent  to  it,  is  to  offend  against  one's  inward  integrity,  for  the  sake  of 

what  must  be  a  temporary,  and  may  be  a  hollow,  social  reformation. 

(3)  Generally,  in  any  movement  of  reform,  a  man  should  never  be  held 
responsible  except  for  his  own  convictions  and  the  expression    .„.  ^ 

of  them.    It  is  true,  he  is  also  responsible  for  candor  and    should  be 
frankness  and  friendliness  of  spirit,  and  all  those  personal    held  beyond 
qualities  which  are  fitted  to  gain  the  sympathetic  regard  of   ^'^  personal 
others.    But,  so  far  as  the  matter  of  the  reform  is  concerned,    ^®"^*^  ^""^* 
he  is  responsible  only  for  his  own  convictions,  as  earnestly  and  ardently 
enforced.    With  the  constant  and  earnest  expression  of  these  convictions, 
with  energy,  frankness,  and  sympathetic  feeling,  his  duty  terminates. 

If  his  opinions  or  acts  are  misunderstood,  if  his  acts  or  arguments  make 
a  different  impression  from  that  which  he  designs  them  to  effect,  he  may 
offend  the  public  conscience,  and  hinder  the  cause  which  he  designs  to  fur- 
ther. He  may  offend  the  conscience  of  good  men,  and  be  counted  as  morally 
unsound,  or  treacherous  to  a  good  cause.  He  has  no  right  to  do  either 
if  he  can  avoid  it  by  honest  methods.  He  is  responsible  for  the  impression 
he  makes,  so  far  as  he  is  aware  of  it.  For  this  reason,  a  man  is  bound  to 
see  to  it  that  the  true  import  and  reasons  of  his  act  should  be  fully  made 
known,  whenever  they  concern  his  attitude  in  respect  to  any  social  move- 
ment in  which  he  allows  himself  to  take  part.  He  may  not  fall  back  on 
his  personal  independence,  if  by  that  he  means  a  license  to  be  indifferent 
or  reckless  as  to  what  others  think  in  respect  to  any  cause  which  is  brought 
into  question.  He  may  say,  indeed,  What  business  has  the  community  to 
concern  themselves  with  what  I  do,  or  how  I  think  ?  *'  Why  is  my  liberty 
judged  of  another  man's  conscience?"    To  this  question,  which  is  often 


442  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL   SCIENCE.  [§  244. 

asked,  the  answer  is  direct:  Your  liberty  to  have  your  own  opinion  in 
regard  to  the  act  in  question  iS'  not  at  all  challenged.  What  is  denied  or 
called  in  question  is  liberty  of  another  sort;  viz.,  the  liberty  to  be  indiffer- 
ent as  to  what  interpretation  shall  be  put  upon  your  act  by  others,  whether 
it  is  or  is  not  correct.  In  other  words,  every  man  is  morally  bound  to  see 
that  his  position  with  respect  to  every  important  question  of  social  reform 
shall  be  distinctly  understood.  To  the  question.  Why  should  the  com- 
munity concern  itself  with  what  I  do,  or  with  how  I  think  ?  the  answer  is 
pertinent:  Every  man  is  bound  to  make  his  influence  tell  on  the  right 
side,  and,  to  this  end,  to  make  the  meaning  of  his  conduct  unequivocal 
and  emphatic. 

(4)  It  may  be  a  binding  duty  for  a  man  to  refrain  from  many  actions 

innocent  in  themselves,  if  there  is  danger  that  his  actual  feel- 

(4)  Dntj  to  jjjgg  ^jj(j  purposes  shall  be  misinterpreted,  and  thereby  hia 
♦!.«  «  «  «  actual  influence  shall  be  given  to  evil.  This  is  the  true 
ance  of  evil,     interpretation  of  the  maxim,  "  If  meat  make  my  brother  to 

offend,  I  will  eat  no  flesh  while  the  world  standeth."  It  does 
not  signify  that  I  am  to  refrain  from  innocent  actions  because  a  fanatic  or 
simpleton  may  plead  my  example,  when  he  knows  or  might  know  that  the 
act  is  allowed  by  me  with  a  good  conscience,  and  is  therefore  wholly  inno- 
cent in  me,  whatever  it  may  be  in  himself.  But  it  does  signify,  that  if 
an  act  which  I  know  to  be  innocent  and  right  shall  make  a  simple  or  sin- 
ning man  morally  to  err,  because  he  misconstrues  the  moral  import  of  the 
act,  I  will  refrain  from  the  act  as  I  would  avoid  tempting  a  fellow-man  to 
a  crime  I  may  not  destroy  or  tempt  any  man  to  evil  by  an  act  which 
he  shall  construe  to  be  held  by  me  as  morally  wrong,  and  yet  performed 
by  me  though  evil,  unless  there  are  other  decisive  and  prevailing  reasons 
why  the  act  should  be  allowed. 

(5)  The  failures  or  weaknesses  that  attend  not  a  few  social  movements 

for  important  moral  ends  furnish  no  argument  against  the 

(5)  Social         legitimacy  or  importance  of  this  class  of  duties.    In  social 

movemen  movements  of  which  the  ends  are  desirable,  and  the  methods 

are  strong 

and  wealc.        ^r<^  wise,  there  is  more  than  the  aggregate  strength  of  the 

individuals  who  embark  in  them.  Public  opinion,  when  it 
moves  strongly  under  these  conditions,  has  an  organic  force.  This  force 
is  the  product  of  that  common  sympathy  which  blends  individual  feel- 
ings into  a  social  agency  of  generous  love  and  self-sacrifice.  This  ethical 
love  is  sanctioned  by  the  approving  conscience  of  each  and  of  all.  Its 
appeal  to  those  whom  it  would  benefit  is  backed  by  the  rational  and 
united  conviction  of  a  great  community  animated  by  one  spirit,  impell- 
ing to  an  end  which  is  wholly  good,  and  responded  to  by  the  convicted 
consciences  of  all  whom  they  address.  But,  resistless  and  legitimate  as  is 
such  an  organic  force  when  it  is  inspired  by  the  truth,  the  weakness  of  a 
factitious  reform,  whether  its  ends  are  doubtful  or  the  means  arc  illegiti- 


§  244.]        DUTIES  OF  GENERAL  BENEFICENCE.  443 

mate,  is  equally  manifest  by  the  contrast.  In  such  movements,  violent 
assertion  takes  the  place  of  solid  argument ;  lawless  vituperation,  of  sym- 
pathetic appeal ;  sophistical  rhetoric,  of  convincing  logic.  The  one  is  as 
a  chorus  of  conspiring  voices  sustained  by  a  well-trained  orchestra,  that 
constrains  to  admiring  sympathy  ;  the  other,  a  crowd  of  inharmonious 
performers,  that  disgust  and  repel  by  a  braying  dissonance  of  sound. 
Each  in  its  way  exemplifies  the  truth  that  no  social  effort  can  succeed, 
whose  ends  are  moral,  if  it  does  not  utter  the  truth  in  a  loving  spirit. 

These  principles,  it  will  be  observed,  apply  equally  to  the  special 
duties  which  respect  social  reforms,  and  the  general  duty  of  wisely  direct- 
ing our  personal  influence  for  moral  ends ;  it  being  remembered  that  both 
are  enforced  by  the  general  obligation  to  promote  the  moral  welfare  of  our 
fellow-men  in  every  possible  method.  (Cf .  Francis  Wayland,  The  Limitcv- 
tions  of  Human  Respormhility :  Boston,  1838.) 


444  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL   SCIENCE.  [§  245. 


CHAPTER  XII. 


DUTIES  TO   BENEFACTORS,  FRIENDS,  AND   ENEMIES;  OR, 
THE  SPECIAL  PERSONAL  AFFECTIONS. 

§  245.  Duties  of  this  class  are  owed  to  those  single  individ- 
uals with  whom  we  are  connected  by  special  acts 

The  af fee-  *'      ^ 

tions  and  and  relations,  such  as  give  rise  to  special  sympa- 
shi*s^"hon  thies  or  antipathies.  These  acts  and  relations  may 
character.  be  agreeable  or  disagreeable ;  the  emotions  may  be 
attractive  or  repellent.  The  relations  are  grounded 
in  the  constitution  of  man,  and  consequently  evoke  certain 
natural  emotions  and  impulses,  which  are  manifested  in  ap- 
propriate actions.  They  are  universal  to  man,  being  certain 
to  exist  under  the  circumstances  which  are  common  to  the 
human  race.  The  affections,  also,  as  natural  forces,  both  unite 
and  repel.  As  regulated  by  the  will,  whether  in  the  form  of 
indulgence  or  repression,  they  are  subject  to  the  law  of  duty, 
and  take  on  a  moral  character.  So  far  as  this  is  true,  men 
become  responsible  for  their  affections,  and  the  actions  to  which 
they  impel.  The  objective  grounds  of  these  duties  are  certain 
relationships  which  connect  man  with  his  fellow-beings,  and  fit 
him  to  exist  in  the  various  spheres  which  make  up  human  soci- 
ety. Their  subjective  grounds  are  the  emotions  and  impulses 
which  correspond  to  these  relationships. 

As  natural  emotions,  they  obey  those  psychical  laws  which 

are  common  to  all  the  elementary  feelings  of  our 
In  what  *^         .    ^ 

sense  are        nature.     Upder  the  operation  of  association,  these 

they  natural    sui)tile  threads  of   original  feeling  are  woven  into 

and  moral.  o  o 

complex  and  many-shaded  tissues,  which   are   eifr 
pressed   through   the  various   words   and   tones   and   gesturei^ 


§246.]  SPECIAL  PERSONAL  AFFECTIONS.  445 

which  make  up  the  language  of  feeling.  As  moral,  they  are 
capable  of  a  still  greater  diversity,  so  far  as  they  are  modified 
by  voluntary  indulgence  or  control.  As  these  natural  and 
moral  elements  are  combined,  they  characterize  the  separate 
personality  of  every  human  being.  This  personality  is  individ- 
ual so  soon  as  every  man  begins  to  exist  with  tendencies  or 
repellencies  which  are  his  own.  It  is  individualized  still  further, 
as  these  forces  are  modified  by  his  physical,  intellectual,  and 
personal  environment.  But  it  is  more  conspicuously  and  con- 
summately individual  as  the  moral  will  stamps  its  impress  upon 
these  natural  characteristics,  and  moulds  them  to  its  service, 
under  the  stimulus  and  control  of  the  law  of  duty,  or  in  devia- 
tion from  and  resistance  to  that  law. 

§  246.  Though  we  are  bound  to  our  fellow-men,  as  men,  by 
a  common  sympathy,  they  are  not  to  us  objects  of 
equal  interest,  nor  do  they  impart  to  us  equal  pleas-  like  in  their 
ure.  Were  all  men  alike,  and  did  they  interest  one 
another  with  sympathies  alike  in  quality  and  degree,  humanity 
would  be  reduced  to  a  monotonous  uniformity.  All  its  richness 
and  variety  would  be  sacrificed  to  a  tame  similarity.  Each 
man  would  be  the  counterpart  of  his  fellow.  Personality 
would  be  robbed  of  all  its  charms,  and  the  opportunity  for 
individual  freedom  and  individual  development  would  be 
excluded.  Men  are  individual,  not  only  by  reason  of  their 
separate  personality,  but  by  the  many-shaded  and  many-hued 
individual  differences  which  meet  us  at  every  turn  of  human 
life,  and  are  constantly  expressed  in  language  and  behavior. 
We  have  no  reason  to  doubt  that  the  original  endowments  and 
manifestations  of  human  sensibility  are  indefinitely  various. 
When  to  these  differences  of  original  structure,  there  is  added 
a  difference  of  circumstances,  there  is  necessarily  a  still  greater 
difference  in  their  products,  in  character  and  language,  in  man- 
ners and  tastes.  When  to  these  are  added  the  activities  of  the 
free  and  responsible  will,  there  is  opportunity  for  still  greater 
variety  in  individual  idiosyncrasies. 


446  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL   SCIENCE.         [§§  247, 248. 

§  247.  It  is  not  surprising,  —  it  naturally  and  necessarily  fol- 
lows, —  that  men  thus  differentiated  should  attract 
tn  sympathies  ^^^  repel  One  another  by  natural  and  artificial  sympa- 
and  antipa-      Hxiqs  and  antipathies.    Whether  these  attractive  and 

thies.  ^ 

repelling  emotions  are  reasonable  or  unreasonable, 
whether  they  are  dignified  or  trivial,  their  practical  significance 
is  enormous  in  bringing  men  together  or  holding  them  apart. 
Men  like  or  dislike  one  another  by  a  natural  sympathy  or  repul- 
sion, aside  from  and  before  any  voluntary  or  moral  interference 
with  these  original  impulses.  Upon  these  original  tendencies 
are  superinduced  manifold  secondary  afifections  towards  or 
against  the  individuals  whom  they  encounter.  The  mere  fact 
of  familiar  and  frequent  acquaintance  or  close  proximity  brings 
into  bold  relief  and  conspicuous  prominence,  agreeable  or  dis- 
agreeable characteristics,  whether  of  manners,  of  speech,  of 
habits,  or  character.  The  nearer  and  the  more  frequently  men 
come  together,  the  more  active  is  the  attraction  or  repulsion 
which  they  exert  upon  each  other.  The  circumstance  that  we 
have  been  associated  in  any  activity,  that  we  have  learned  to 
know  one  another  intimately,  that  our  tastes  are  similar  or 
unlike,  that  we  like  or  dislike  the  same  people,  the  same  em- 
ployments, or  the  same  books,  or  that  we  do  or  do  not  hold 
the  same  practical  principles,  tends  to  intensify  any  natural  or 
original  sympathy  or  antipathy  for  or  against  every  individual 
whom  we  know.  If  we  have  had  occasion  to  confide  in  a  man, 
and  found  him  open  or  concealed,  true  or  false,  magnanimous 
or  mean,  any  original  tendency  towards  or  against  him  is  either 
intensified,  counteracted,  or  overcome.  If  he  has  indicated  vol- 
untary or  personal  friendliness  or  hostility  towards  ourselves, 
and  has  manifested  these  feelings  by  his  actions,  our  sympathy 

or  antipathy  is  necessarily  increased. 

Thegeleadto  ^      ^  "^ 

Toiuntary  §  248.  Out  of  thcsc  natural  sympathies  and  an- 

dkuk°^  tagonisms,  joined  with  vai-ying  circumstances  and 

opportunities  of   intercourse  and  knowledge,  there 

grows  the  natm-al   foundation  for  involuntary  friendship  and 


§249.]  SPECIAL  PERSONAL  AFFECTIONS.  447 

love  on  the  one  hand,  or  for  vohmtary  or  moral  hostility  on  the 
other.  If  we  designate  the  first  by  liking,  we  should  call  it 
the  natural  growth  of  the  sensibilities  and  affections,  the  joint 
production  of  nature  and  opportunity.  If  we  apply  and  limit 
it  to  the  second,  we  should  define  love  to  be  the  voluntary  prod- 
uct of  these  likings  or  dislikings,  so  far  as  they  are  modified 
by  the  personal  or  individual  will,  in  direction,  repression,  or 
indulgence.  In  this  way  each  individual  finds  in  his  social 
experience  and  development  a  special  training  and  varied 
opportunity  to  which  his  will  and  moral  personality  impart  an 
ethical  character.  His  affections  of  liking  and  disliking  are 
individual  in  more  than  one  sense.  They  are  individual  so  far 
as  they  are  the  results  of  his  natural  constitution.  They  are 
individualized  still  further,  so  far  as  they  are  moulded  by  the 
social  environment  of  our  fellow-men.  They  are  more  con- 
spicuously individual,  so  far  as  the  moral  personality  stamps 
upon  them  its  character  as  ethically  right  or  wrong,  as  moulded 
and  tested  by  the  law  of  duty. 

§  249.  But  what  is  the  law  of  duty  here,  and  what  place 
does  it  take  with  respect  to  those  natural  and  indi-  ^^^^  j^^  ^^ 
vidual  affections  which  attract  and  repel  men  ?    Does  duty  with  re- 

,  ,         .  ,    ,  ,  .        ■l^  '.    spect  to  both. 

equal  and  universal  benevolence  to  all  men  permit 
special  and  limited  affections  towards  some,  and  the  actions 
which  such  affections  would  inspire?  If  so,  on  what  ground, 
and  by  what  authority,  does  it  sanction  and  command  these 
limitations  to  a  few?  How  can  impartial  benevolence  enjoin 
unequal  love?  How  can  disinterested  benevolence  enjoin  what 
seems  to  be  an  intensely  interested  affection,  which  always  iso- 
lates and  often  idolizes  its  object?  On  what  general  principle 
can  these  vexed  questions  be  answered  ?  and  by  what  criterion 
can  these  answers  be  justified  in  theory  and  applied 

^  ./  XX  Rationalistic 

m  practice  ?  and  senti- 

These  questions  have  been  variously  answered  in   ™«"t»i 
the  spirit  of  opposite  theories.     Some  moralists  of 
the  rationalistic  school  have  made  the  law  of  love,  as  inter- 


448  ELEMENTS  OF  MOBAL  SCIENCE.  [§  219. 

preted  by  them,  to  require  us  to  feel  and  act  towards  all  men 
alike,  in  the  conscientious  disregard  or  the  stern  repression  of  all 
those  special  feelings  which  attract  or  repel  us  with  respect  to 
individual  men.  This  doctrine  has  been  carried  to  the  extreme 
of  theoretical  and  practical  fanaticism  by  sundry  doctrinaires  of 
both  atheistic  and  Christian  schools.  The  French  republicans 
of  a  certain  type,  in  the  first  Revolution,  formally  required  that 
no  appellations  of  endearment  or  family  affection  should  be 
allowed  which  would  recognize  any  other  relationship  of  duty 
or  affection  than  that  of  common  citizenship.  Ascetics,  in  all 
the  Christian  cehturies,  have  inculcated  the  duty  of  mortifying 
the  loving  affections  between  man  and  man,  as  essentially 
hostile  to  a  disinterested  love  of  God  and  an  impartial  love 
to  his  creatures.  Sundry  sentimentalists,  on  the  other  hand, 
would  find  in  the  natural  strength  or  tenderness  of  any  emo- 
tion, whether  friendly  or  hostile,  the  supreme  law  for  its  regu- 
lation. The  fanaticism  is  equally  unreasonable  which  rejects 
lall  the  defensive  and  primitive  affections  as  essentially  unloving 
and  unlovely,  with  that  which  finds,  in  the  energy  or  tenderness 
or  warmth  of  a  fond  or  romantic  affection,  the  sanction  of  its 
lawful  supremacy  under  every  variety  of  circumstances.  By  a 
similar  error  it  finds  in  the  so-called  natural  relationships,  as  of 
country  or  family  or  church,  the  ultimate  authority  for  the  duty 
which  it  sanctions  and  enforces.  When  carried  a  step  farther, 
sentimentalism  would  sanction  the  breach  of  the  marriage-vow, 
and  the  abnegation  of  the  marriage  relation,  at  the  impulse  of 
what  are  called  elective  affinities^  and  find  in  the  caprice  of 
unregulated  passion  the  final  authority  for  the  personal  and  even 
the  sexual  associations. 

It  would  seem  that  neither  of  these  theories  can  be  wholly  in 
Neither  ig  *^®  ^S^^i  ^^^  that  some  principle  remains  to  be  dis- 
whoiiy  In        covcred  which  will  do  justice  to  what  is  true  in  each. 

erg  .  That  principle  is  furnished  in  the  assumption,  which 
we  are  authorized  to  make,  that  the  well-being  of  men  is  pro- 
moted by  indulging  and  strengthening  their  special  affections, 


§250.]  SPECIAL  PEBSONAL  AFFECTIONS.  449 

whether  friendly  or  hostile,  only  as  regulated  by  a  supreme 
regard  to  the  highest  good  of  the  receiver  and  giver.  At  first 
thought,  this  rule  seems  unsatisfactory  for  its  vagueness,  sound- 
ing, as  it  does,  like  a  barren  and  empty  formula.  It  should  be 
remembered,  however,  that  any  principle  like  this,  when  stated 
in  language,  can  be  little  more  than  an  abstract  proposition  of 
fact,  expressing  only  what  is  common  to  all  those  special  rules 
of  feeling  and  conduct  which  the  practical  discernment  of  men 
has  reached  by  induction  in  the  centuries  of  human  experience, 
aided,  it  may  be,  by  a  higher  guidance.  These  rules,  the  com- 
prehensive, unwritten  codes  of  manners  and  morals  that  are 
found  everywhere  among  civilized  and  savage  men,  so  far  as 
they  are  correct,  have  been  formed  from  such  interpretations 
of  the  intentions  of  nature,  as  indicated  in  man's  individual  and 
social  economy,  and  confirmed  by  the  practical  workings  of 
human  life. 

That  we  are  shut  up  to  these  sources  of  knowledge,  is  still 
further  evident  from  the  fact  that  no  other  is  open 
to   us.      No   absolute   general   rule   has   ever  been  general  rule 
actually  recognized  which  of  itself  can  settle  every  ^^^  **®  ^^^^ 

down. 

conflict  between  two  natural  affections,  —  as  between 
love  to  father  or  mother,  to  benefactor  or  relative,  to  friend  or 
foe,  to  an  acquaintance  or  stranger,  —  or  require  us  invariably 
to  prefer  the  one  to  the  other,  either  in  outward  act  or  inward 
feeling.  No  inward  impression  or  divine  instinct  can  preserve 
us  from  error,  or  guide  us  infallibly  to  the  indulgence  of  the  one 
and  the  suppression  of  the  other  impulse,  when  any  two  come 
in  conflict.  Even  had  we  an  explicit  rule  which  should  provide 
for  all  the  complex  relationships  of  these  intwined  and  conflict- 
ing impulses,  we  should  need  unerring  inspiration  to  determine 
under  which  clause  of  the  rule  or  exception  each  individual  case 
would  fall. 

§  250.  Before,  however,  we  decide  whether  the  law  of  love, 
as  interpreted  by  these  special  relationships,  is  our  only  rule, 
it  may  be  well  to  inquire  what  this  law  in  fact  requires  in  the 


450  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL  SCIENCE.  [§  250. 

regulation  or  indulgence  of  our  special  preferences  and  antip- 
athies.     It   is   important   to   notice    that    the   law 
The  law  of 
lore  does  not  which  bids  US  love  our  neighbor  as  ourselves  does 

require  us  to  ^^^^  require  us  to  have  or  cherish  the  same  emotion 

have  the 

same  feelings  "or  affcctiou  towards  every  individual  of  the  human 
towards  all.  family.  As  it  is  impossible  that  we  should  perform 
towards  all  men  the  same  actions,  similarly  it  is  impossible  that 
we  should  feel  alike  towards  all ;  and  therefore  the  law  of  duty 
does  not  require  this  of  us.  The  special  affections  which  unite 
us  so  closely  to  some,  that  they  become  a  part  of  our  emotional 
life,  are  in  nature  unlike  to  that  common  sympathy  which  makes 
love  to  man  as  man  a  general  and  comprehensive  duty.  Were 
this  law  perfectly  fulfilled,  it  would  not  (because  it  could  not) 
evoke  the  same  personal  interest  towards  every  individual  of 
the  human  race.  The  great  Exemplar  of  disinterested  love 
to  the  human  family  had  his  own  special  circle  of  friends  whom 
he  loved  with  special  affection,  and  among  these  was  one 
whom  he  loved  more  than  all  the  rest.  The  brief  record  con- 
cerning the  disciple  "whom  Jesus  loved'*  should  go  far  to 
settle  many  of  the  difficult  questions  of  casuistry  that  have 
disturbed  the  consciences  of  many  of  his  disinterested  and 
earnest  followers. 

Moreover,  the  law  which  requires  us  to  love  our  neighbor  as 

ourselves  does  not  require  us  to  like  each  one  of 

like  each  of     ^"^'  neighbors  equally  well,  or  necessarily  to  repress 

our  neigh-       our  Sympathy  for  those  who  are  congenial  or  our 

bors  equally.  J     f        j  o 

antipathy  for  those  who  are  distasteful.  It  does 
not  bid  us  have  the  same  emotions  towards  the  trusted  friend 
of  a  lifetime  as  towards  the  stranger  of  an  hour's  acquaintance. 
It  does  not  command  us  to  feel  or  act  with  respect  to  a 
generous  benefactor,  as  we  do  with  respect  to  one  who  has 
shown  us  no  kindness,  or  perhaps  has  returned  our  kindness 
with  gross  ingratitude.  When  it  commands  us  to  love  our 
enemies,  it  does  not  bid  us  repress  the  natural  antagonism 
which  makes  their  society  or  presence  disagreeable,  but  only 


§251.]  SPECIAL  PERSON AL  AFFECTIONS.  451 

to  love  them  morally  as  men.  Whatever  modifying  or  adjust- 
ing force  this  moral  love  may  subsequently  exert  upon  our  sym- 
pathies or  antipathies,  upon  our  likings  or  unlikings,  may  be 
safely  left  to  itself.  The  law  of  liking^  which  is  founded  in 
human  nature,  was  never  intended  to  dishonor  that  nature,  or  to 
violate  and  shock  its  individual  affinities  or  preferences.  The 
moral  law  of  loving  can  not  and  does  not  supersede  or  extin- 
guish the  natural  law  of  liking  which  brings  individuals  together 
and  holds  them  apart. 

§  251.  The  well-being  of  man,  moreover,   is   promoted   by 
cherishing  and  obeying  many  of    the  limited  and  Theindui- 
special  affections.     Whether  we  consider  the  happi-  &en«e  o^ 
ness  which  comes  from  the  affections  themselves  as  affections 
subjective  experiences,   or  the  actions   which  they  *»  salutary, 
prompt,  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  sum  of  human  well- 
being  is  immensely  augmented  by  the  limitation  of  their  special 
activities  to  narrow  channels,  and  the  consequent  augmentation 
of  the  strength  and  sensitiveness  of  the  special  emotions  them- 
selves.    It  follows,  not  only  that  the  law  of  general  benevolence 
allows,  but  that  it  sanctions  and  enforces,  respect  to  the  personal 
affections  of  friendship  and  gratitude,  and  even  exalts  to  the 
very  highest  place  the  duties  to  which  these  impel. 

The  duties  which  are  thus  sanctioned,  whether  they  concern 
the  feelings  or  the  conduct,  are  enforced  as  special  inferences 
or  applications  from  the  comprehensive  law  of  love  to  man 
as  man.  These  inferences  are  largely  left  to  the  individual 
judgment,  and  cannot  be  formulated  as  axioms  or  even  as 
positive  and  general  principles.  No  absolute  and  unchanging 
precepts  can  be  laid  down  in  respect  to  every  case  which  may 
arise,  nor  even  in  regard  to  the  relative  place  of  these  relation- 
ships and  affections  in  general  as  measured  with  one  another. 
All  that  ethical  science  can  accomplish  is  to  justify  and  enjoin 
duties  of  this  class  as  among  the  most  important  of  human 
obligations,  and  to  do  justice  to  the  reasons  which  enforce  them. 
The  only  comprehensive  rule  for  their  regulation  is  furnished  by 


452  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL  SCIENCE.  [§  252. 

the  formula  which  bids  us  to  seek  the  highest  good  of  all  men, 

leaviug  the  adjustment  of  the  natural  and  personal  sympathies 

and  antipathies  to  special  cases  as  they  arise. 

§  252.  If  the  moral  affection  of  love  be  supreme,  the  special 

personal  affections  will  take  their  appropriate  places, 

strengthens     ^^^  assume  their  relative  and  rightful  strength.     It 

the  special       jg  most  important  to  observe,  moreover,  that  this 
affections. 

affection  or  controlling  purpose  is  exercised  and 
disciplined,  is  strengthened  or  weakened,  is  tried  and  proved, 
continually,  in  the  special  forms  of  our  love  to  acquaintances 
and  benefactors,  to  friends  and  enemies.  The  love  to  man 
which  we  exercise  is  love  to  some  particular  man,  —  to  father 
or  mother,  to  husband  or  wife,  to  child  or  benefactor,  to  friend 
or  neighbor.  It  is  through  the  control  which  we  exercise  over 
these  affections,  and  the  energy  we  impart  to  them,  that  the 
moral  discipline  of  love  to  man  as  man  is  maintained  and 
perfected,  and  the  character  and  habits  become  better  or  worse. 
While  the  comprehensive  and  abstract  formula  of  duty  from 
man  to  man  is  the  duty  of  voluntary  love,  the  application 
of  this  rule  to  the  special  affections  involves  their  energetic 
or  their  vigorous  repression  in  due  proportion  to  one  another. 
They  all  have  their  foundation  and  place  in  the  nature  of  man. 
Each  one  of  them  has  its  function  in  the  social  economy. 
They  are  all  necessary  and  useful  for  man's  development  and 
progress.  The  temptations  to  failure  and  weakness  are  con- 
stant in  every  one  of  these  relations.  The  natural  rudiments 
of  human  affections,  both  sympathetic  and  repellent,  are  con- 
stantly liable  to  excess  and  defect  in  their  relative  proportion, 
and  to  misplacement  in  respect  to  the  objects  which  excite  them, 
and  on  which  they  rest.  Men  love  their  friends  and  benefactors 
too  much  or  too  little  absolutely  or  relatively.  Their  friend- 
ships and  antipathies,  their  gratitudes  or  their  resentments,  are 
either  too  strong,  or  disproportioned  to  one  another. 

It  follows  that  special  rules  or  maxims,  founded  on  individual 
or  general  experience,  may  aid  us  in  the  application  of  these 


§253.]  SPECIAL  PERSONAL  AFFECTIONS.  453 

general  principles.     They  concern  the  objects  of  these  special 
affections,  and   the   relative   energy   or   proportion 
with    which    the    feelings    should    be    indulged    or  founded  on 
obeyed.     These  special  rules  are  simply  inductions   s^n^rai 

inductions. 

derived  from  the  interpretation  of  human  nature 
and  from  the  lessons  of  human  experience.  They  vary  greatly 
in  their  import,  and  their  application  to  particular  cases.  Pri- 
marily they  are  rules  for  the  affections  or  feelings  ;  secondarily 
and  necessarily  they  extend  to  the  actions,  both  those  which 
express  the  feelings  and  those  which  re-act  upon  them.  They, 
are  consequently  rules  for  the  inner  culture  as  truly  as  for  the 
outer  life.  They  are  classed  as  duties  which  respect  sympathy 
and  antipathy.,  duties  which  originate  from  favors  bestowed  or 
injuries  received.,  duties  which  grow  out  of  associations  of  intim- 
acy and  confidence.,  duties  to  acknowledged  friends  and  recog- 
7iized  enemies. 

§  253.  The  first  class  spring  from  our  sympathies  and  antipa- 
thies. We  may  indulge  and  obey  our  personal  lik- 
ings  and  dislikings,  our  sympathies  and  antipathies,  respect  the 
our  gratitude  and  our  resentment,  so  far  as  they  do  ^^"'^^ 
not  lead  us  to  wrong  our  fellow-man  whom  we  do  not  fancy, 
of  any  good  which  we  might  do  him  ;  or  harm  the  one  whom 
we  like,  by  excess  of  affection ;  or  wrong  ourselves  by  lack  of 
control  over  blind  and  unreasoning  emotion.  We  have  already 
seen  that  we  cannot,  if  we  would,  be  neighbors  to  every  one  of 
our  fellow-men  ;  and  that  it  is  for  our  convenience,  as  well  as  for 
that  of  our  fellows,  that  we  should  limit  our  affections  and  acts 
to  a  few,  naturally  to  those  nearest  to  us.  For  similar  reasons, 
though  more  emphatically,  we  are  not  only  permitted,  but  com- 
manded, to  bestow  our  strongest  and  most  frequent  sympathies 
and  acts  of  blessing  upon  those  with  whom  we  sympathize  most 
fully  and  intensely.  That  we  may  and  should  regulate  these 
sympathies,  is  obvious  ;  but,  this  being  conceded,  the  rule  re- 
mains, and  the  reasons  for  it  are  plain.  If  I  can  effectively 
feel  and  act  for  only  three  hundred  of  my  fellow-men,  owing  to 


454  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL  SCIENCE.  [§  253. 

the  limitations  of  human  force  and  opportunity,  and  can  do  this 
more  effectively  for  the  three  hundred  to  whom  I  am  especially 
drawn  by  favoring  sympathy,  then  I  may  and  ought  to  limit 
myself  to  these.  If  there  are  many,  or  few,  whom  I  naturally 
dislike,  who  waken  in  me  a  positive  antipathy,  and  to  contribute 
to  whose  good  I  am  impelled  by  no  special  reason  of  ability, 
or  knowledge  of  impending  necessity  or  certain  suffering  from 
others,  and  if  I  expend  the  entire  force  of  my  love  upon  those 
to  whom  I  am  thus  drawn  by  natural  and  special  sympathy,  / 
do  it  rightly.  For  a  similar  reason  I  may  cherish  my  likings  if 
they  are  natural,  and  yield  to  my  mislikings  if  they  are  genuine 
and  unforced,  because  a  concentrated  interest  in  a  few  indi- 
viduals is  made  necessary  by  the  limitations  of  my  nature,  and 
because  it  is  at  once  the  most  potent  incitement  to  self-sacri- 
ficing and  disinterested  affection,  and  trains  the  man  to  more 
tenacious  and  constant  habits  of  benevolent  feeling  and  action. 
Such  a  rule  of  feeling  and  of  life  enhances  and  enlarges  im- 
mensely the  range  of  individual  and  social  enjoyment,  and  gives 
to  man  his  noblest  discipline  for  a  perfected  charity  and  a 
higher  than  human  love. 

The  antipathies^  also,  with  which  we  are  concerned,  are  those 
The  antipa-     instinctive  and  necessary  repulsions  which  are  natr 

thies  should     urally  evoked  by  contact  with  those  of  our  fellow- 
be  regarded,  ^        .      .  ^1-1 
but  con-          i^en  whose  nature  is,  in  many  respects,  unlike  our 

trolled.  own.     Thesc   antagonistic   or  uncongenial  feelings 

are  supposed  by  us  to  be  purely  natural,  and  in  no  sense  vol- 
untary or  morally  reprehensible.  The  original  fact  cannot  be 
denied,  that  we  are  impelled  towards  all  men  by  the  sympathies 
which  are  common  to  us  as  men.  But  we  are  also  repelled  from 
many  by  the  feelings  which  our  antipathic  personality  awakens. 
That  such  antipathies  may  be  perverted  to  selfishness  and 
malice  and  cruelty,  is  obvious.  But  that  they  exist,  and  cannot 
be  violently  repressed,  will  not  be  denied.  All  that  we  need  to 
provide  is  positively  that  we  love  all  our  fellow-beings  as  men, 
even  when  we  dislike  them  as  uncongenial  to  owselves.     If  our 


§  254.]  SPECIAL  PERSONAL  AFFECTIONS.  455 

dislikes  lead  us  into  prejudices,  or  hostility,  or  any  form  of 
voluntary  hatred  which  overrides  the  law  of  duty,  there  is  a 
moral  perversion  by  an  act  or  habit  of  will ;  and  this  is  always 
morally  wrong,  whether  it  manifests  itself  as  excessive  fondness 
for  one  man,  or  excessive  dislike  for  another. 

§  254.  These  principles  which  respect  the  natural  sympathies 
or  antipathies  also  apply  to  our  duties  of  gratitude 
and  resentment.  These  emotions  are  always  re-  gratitude  and 
sponsive  to,  and  excited  by,  the  good  and  evil  which  '*^*"  ™*"  * 
is  intended  or  imparted  to  ourselves  by  others.  In  the  old  Eng- 
lish usage,  the  generic  term  resentment  was  employed  to  desig- 
nate this  feeling  in  both  its  forms,  including  gratitude  for  good 
as  truly  as  anger  for  evil.  In  later  usage,  "resentment"  has 
been  limited  to  the  specific  feeling  of  anger  in  its  various  forms, 
from  the  feeblest  to  the  strongest.  The  existence  of  gratitude 
as  a  spontaneous  re-action  with  respect  to  good  intended  or 
imparted  is  invariably  recognized  as  natural  to  man.  Its  be- 
neficence and  loveliness  are  as  universally  apprehended.  Its 
perversions  and  consequent  mischiefs  are  more  slowly  noticed 
and  assented  to,  though  not  entirely  overlooked.  That  grati- 
tude may  be  fond  and  selfish  and  narrowing,  is  not  so  readily 
owned.  Ingratitude  involves  insensibility  to  the  value  of  a 
benefit  bestowed,  or  the  reality  of  the  kindness  of  the  giver ; 
and,  whether  it  take  the  form  of  insensibility  or  distrust,  it  is 
rightly  esteemed  as  one  of  the  basest  forms  of  selfishness.  None 
but  a  definitely  and  positively  selfish  will  can  be  capable  of  this 
offence,  for  the  reason  that  an  unselfish  will  cannot  withhold  its 
natural  and  vigorous  responses  to  kindness  of  act  and  friendli- 
ness of  feeling  from  another.  Nothing  but  a  selfish  pre-occu- 
pation  with  one's  own  interests,  or  insensibility  to  generous 
emotion  of  every  kind,  can  explain  the  failure  to  exercise  this, 
the  most  spontaneous  and  the  most  natural  of  the  loving  emo- 
tions. The  severity  of  the  terms  an  ingrate,  or  an  ungrateful 
dog^  expresses  the  natural  feelings  and  judgments  of  men  with 
respect  to  this  unnatural  and  odious  form  of  the  selfish  will. 


456  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL  SCIENCE. 


[§  255. 


That  gratitude  is  at  once  the  most  spontaneous  and  the  most 
natural  of  the  emotions,  appears  from  the  circumstance  that  it 
is  indulged  by  multitudes  who  lay  claim  to  bo  specially  high 
standard  of  duty,  and,  indeed,  who  indulge  almost  every  self- 
ish passion,  but  yet  are  not  insensible  to  the  claims  which  the 
reception  of  favors  and  of  love  from  their  fellow-men  imposes. 

§  255.  Resentment  for  evU,  on  the  other  hand,  is  with  greater 
Difficulty  in  ^^ifflculty  and  rareness  acknowledged  to  be  morally 
regulating  usef ul  and  good.  It  is  often  excessive  and  intense ; 
and  its  consequences  are  often  most  disastrous  to 
the  objects  upon  which  it  expends  its  fury,  and  the  subject 
The  natural  whom  it  unmans  and  distorts  by  the  unnatural  heat 
solution.  Qf  ungoverned  passion.  The  provision  in  human 
nature  for  resentment  or  retaliation,  is  not  always  seen  to  be 
necessary,  much  less  to  be  beneficent.  To  vindicate  and  ex- 
Butier's  plain  this  tendency.  Bishop  Butler  has  distinguished 

distinction,  between  sudden  and  deliberate  resentment  (Sermons 
8,  9)  ;  the  first  of  which  he  defends  as  an  impulse  which  is 
more  rapid  than  consciousness,  and  which  forestalls  all  delibera- 
tion. The  design  of  this  provision,  in  his  view,  is  to  repel 
those  sudden  and  rapid  onsets  of  evil  against  which  we  cannot 
protect  ourselves  by  timely  notice  or  cool  precautions.  De- 
liberate resentment,  on  the  other  hand,  is  that  which  results 
from  reflection  and  voluntary  consent,  and  is  called  forth  by 
intended  injury.  Butler's  logic  would  defend  and  explain 
sudden  resentment  as  a  necessary  provision  against  sudden 
exigencies  ;  while  it  makes  deliberate  resentment  always  neces- 
sary, and  therefore  indispensable,  against  deliberate  intention 
to  harm  ;  forethought  and  calculation  being  always  supposed  to 
be  at  hand,  to  dispense  with  any  vicious  impulse  to  harm  or 
injure  others,  and  any  thing  like  hostile  feeling  towards  them. 
The  question  why  one  man  should  ever  be  impelled  to  a  passion- 
ate impulse  of  hostility  towards  another  is  not  raised  by  him  : 
certainly  it  is  not  answered. 

It  would  seem  that  the  natural  explanation  of  the  hostile 


§256.]  SPECIAL  PEBSONAL  AFFECTIONS.  457 

or  resentful  affection  in  man  is  to  be  found  in  the  necessities 
of  his  condition  as  exposed  to  evil,  both  natural  and 

1      -  j_  •    .         J.  .        >  •         1      Resentment 

moral,  from  a  great  variety  of  sources,  irrational,   founded  on 
animal,  personal,  and  as  summoned  to  defend  him-   *  natural 

impulse* 

self  against  them  all.  If  by  his  sensitive  nature  he 
revolts  against  suffering  of  every  kind,  he  must  also  revolt  and 
re-act  against  the  originator  of  suffering,  whether  it  be  rational 
or  irrational,  whether  it  be  personal  or  impersonal.  A  painful 
blow  inevitably  arouses  an  antagonistic  feeling,  and  he  is  im- 
pelled to  repel  the  stroke.  An  angry  assault  upon  his  person 
or  his  life  calls  forth  the  excited  and  impulsive  opposition  of 
displeasure,  —  innocent  and  natural  anger  we  may  call  it,  — 
which  is  as  sudden  and  uncontrollable  as  the  sudden  act  of 
shaking  off  a  scorpion  or  serpent  when  he  stings  or  bites  us. 
Similarly,  the  knowledge  that  a  person  deliberately  plots  evil 
against  our  life,  falsely  maligns  our  character  or  purposes,  or 
destroys  our  peace,  awakens  a  natural  and  innocent  antagonism. 
In  one  word,  evil  is  an  incident  of  man's  condition  so  abun- 
dant, so  manifold,  so  unexpected,  that  man  needs  to  be  aroused 
quickly,  and  sustained  emphatically,  in  his  efforts  to  repel  it. 
Hence  natural  resentment,  as  a  constitutional  endowment,  is 
properly  conceived  as  the  defensive  affection  or  impulse.  As 
voluntarily  allowed,  it  is  useful  and  necessary  when  it  impels 
a  sensitive  man  to  inflict  suffering  in  self-assertion  or  self-de- 
fence, to  inflict  it  without  hesitation  and  with  a  will  (as  we  say) 
upon  any  treacherous  or  malignant  foe  ;  nerving  him  to  the 
effort  required,  and  inspiring  him  witli  the  sacred  rage  of  per- 
sonal indignation,  till  his  painful  but  needed  work  of  protec- 
tion, deliverance,  or  defence  is  accomplished.  This  furnishes 
the  personal  and  emotional  element  to  the  sense  of  justice  in 
all  its  forms.  It  animates  a  community  with  virtuous  abhor- 
rence of  evil,  and  enables  it  to  punish  crime  with  the  energy 
and  fire  which  crime  naturally  evokes  against  itself  as  an  enemy 
of  individual  welfare  and  the  public  peace. 

§  256.  When  this  natural  resentment  is  perverted  by  a  selfish 


458  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL  SCIENCE.  [§  257. 

will,  and  especially  when  it  is  the  outcome  of  long-cherished 
habits  of  selfish  indulgence,  it  acquires  a  fearful  pre- 
ponderance over  all  counteracting  and  opposing  not  easily 
emotions.  The  natural  capacity  for  hostile  feelings  ^^^^ 
increases  by  repetition,  at  a  geometrical  ratio.  The  imagination 
invests  the  hated  object  with  exaggerated  hideousness  ;  while  the 
habit  of  quick  and  sensitive  irascibility  follows  anger  if  fre- 
quently indulged,  especially  if  the  temperament  be  hot  and  fiery. 
The  sense  of  having  betrayed  the  weakness  of  passion  to  one's 
self  or  others  compels  to  self- justification.  Anger  at  one's  self 
provokes,  by  a  necessary  law,  anger  at  others.  The  self-con- 
trolling will  gives  place  to  ungrounded  passion,  which  justifies 
by  its  weakness  the  appellation  which  it  bears.  The  whole  store 
of  motley  habiliments  and  hideous  disguises  which  anger  wears, 
and  which  wilful  resentment  puts  on,  only  serves  to  illustrate 
the  truth,  that,  useful  and  necessary  as  the  capacity  for  resent- 
ment at  times  may  be,  there  is  no  impulse  of  our  nature  that 
needs  such  prompt  and  decided  control,  because  there  is  none 
which  does  such  unmeasured  harm  to  those  whom  it  impels  to 
malignant  feeling,  or  those  who  are  the  unhappy  objects  of 
its  unreasonable  and  passionate  rage.  These  higher  stages  of 
unreasonable  temper  are  rightly  called  malignant;  the  term 
implying  that  they  are  producers  of  unmitigated  evil,  without 
excuse  or  palliation.  Nature  holds  up  her  warning  against 
such  a  temper,  in  the  raging  cruelty' of  those  remorseless  beasts 
of  prey  whom  she  has  made  offensive  to  the  human  race,  not 
only  by  the  rational  knowledge  that  they  are  dangerous,  but  by 
the  terror  of  their  very  aspect,  and  the  manifold  signs  by  which 
they  warn  reasoning  and  self -controlling  man  not  to  be  like 
themselves. 

§  257.  One  of  the  most  offensive  of  the  forms  which  malignant 
resentment  assumes  is  that  of  an  unforgiving  temper,   j^„  unforgir- 
—  an  impulse  to  hate  and  punish  after  the  occasion  *»»  temper, 
for  hatred  has  ceased,  and  the  injury  which  had  provoked  our 
anger  has  been  withdrawn  and  acknowledged.     Whatever  the 


§258.]  SPECIAL  PEBSONAL  AFFECTIONS.       -  459 

exigencies  of  legal  or  social  retribution  maj^  require  in  suffer- 
ing to  the  offender,  after  he  has  abandoned  and  confessed  his 
offence,  it  is  clear  that  moral  love,  or  benevolence,  when  con- 
trolled by  a  conscientious  will,  requires  that  resentment  provoked 
by  hatred  or  injury  should  cease  the  moment  its  existing  occa- 
sion ceases  to  exist.  Any  continuance  of  it  longer  cannot  be 
justified  by  any  consideration,  in  the  light  of  that  love  which  is 
the  fulfilling  of  the  moral  law.  The  charity  which  thinketh  no 
evil,  which  is  the  bond  of  perfectness,  which  "  seeketh  not  her 
own,  is  not  easily  provoked,'*  is  exactly  the  opposite  of  the 
resentful  temper  which  is  slow  to  forgive,  or  which  when  it  for- 
gives declares  that  it  will  not  and  can  not  forget.  The  ancient 
morality,  in  its  best  and  sweetest  forms,  reached  the  height  of  a 
dignified  self-control  over  the  passions  of  revenge  ;  it  attained  to 
commiserating  pity  for  the  malice  of  one's  enemies,  and  to  sad 
regretfulness  for  their  weakness  :  but  the  loving  forgiveness  that 
can  pray  for  their  forgiveness  by  God,  in  the  very  agony  of 
suffering  from  their  malignant  hostility,  is  inspired  by  an  exam- 
ple which,  though  human  in  its  capacity  for  keenness  of  suffer- 
ing, seems  superhuman  in  its  capacity  to  bear  and  to  overcome. 
He  who  became  human,  that  he  might  know  how  keen  the 
anguish  is  for  the  innocent  to  suffer  malignant  hatred  in  return 
for  love,  showed  that  he  was  more  than  human  in  the  over- 
coming forgiveness  that  could  pray  for  his  murderers. 

§  258.  When  congeniality  and  kindness  exist,  and  circum- 
stances favor,  friendships  arise.     The  circumstances  ^  .    ^  , . 

Friendship 

which  condition  personal  friendship,  and  give  rise  as  a  moral 
to  its  special  duties,  are  manifold.  Prominent  "*^* 
among  them  is  the  opportunity  for  intimate  acquaintance,  often 
under  circumstances  specially  favorable  for  emotional  impres- 
sion and  sympathy,  such  as  bring  to  the  parties  an  intimate 
knowledge  of  the  inner  motives,  tastes,  and  principles.  Open- 
ness of  temper,  the  disposition  to  receive  and  to  give,  confi- 
dence in  each  other's  truth,  steadiness  and  loyalty  of  temper, 
and  a  high  standard  of  honor  and  duty,  —  these  are  essentials 


460  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL  SCIENCE. 


[§  259. 


to  friendship  in  its  noblest  and  most  permanent  types.  But 
whatever  may  be  the  types  of  friendship,  or  whatever  may  be 
the  natural  impulses  on  which  it  rests,  it  cannot  be  doubted 
that  when  formed  it  imposes  especial  moral  obligations,  and  that 
these  obligations  are  of  the  most  sacred  character.  These  obli- 
Speciai  gations  exalt  friendship  into  a  duty  and  a  virtue, 

friendships  and  sanction  its  moral  aims  when  the  relation  is 
patibie  with  ^^^^  ennobled.  The  opinion  that  the  law  of  univer- 
the  law  of      gal  love  is  incompatible  with  the  impulse  to  special 

attachments,  and  especially  to  those  of  the  intenser 
sort,  or  that  the  obligations  to  concentrated  and  ardent  affection 
are  of  inferior  sacredness  and  authority,  cannot  be  maintained 
for  an  instant. 

It  has  been  contended  by  not  a  few  hostile  critics  and  timid 

friends  of   the  Christian  morality,  that  it  fails  to 

Mistaken  •  -i  /. 

Tiews  of  the  recognize  and  to  enforce  any  obligation  to  special 
Christian  friendship  and  impliedly  would  exclude  and  con- 
demn  it.  Such  critics  fail  to  discern  that  it  recog- 
nizes other  exclusive  relations,  as  of  husband  and  wife,  in  the 
most  positive  and  energetic  tone,  and  that  this  relation  implies 
and  sanctions  a  friendship  of  the  most  sacred  and  endearing 
character ;  and,  moreover,  that  there  was  no  practical  occasion 
for  its  original  teachings  to  give  special  prominence  to  duties 
between  friends  or  duties  to  country.  It  is  enough  to  remove 
all  diflSculties,  and  answer  all  objections,  to  be  sure  that  in  prin- 
ciple and  by  implication  Gliristianity  provides  for,  sanctions, 
and  enforces  other  special  affections,  even  if  it  did  not  give  us 
an  illustration,  as  also  a  moving  and  sufficient  example,  in  the 
love  of  Jesus  for  John. 

§  259.  Friendship  is  of  the  nature  of  a  contract,  —  a  contract 
Friendshi  ^^ue  the  Icss  real  because  it  is  not  formal,  none  the 
a  sacred  Icss  sacrcd  bccausc  its  assurances  are  not  definitely 

phrased,  and  the  conditions  of  its  fulfilment  are 
not  precisely  defined.  Its  importance  and  sacredness  spring 
from  the  element  of  mutual  reliance  for  help  and  sympathy  in 


§260.]  SPECIAL  FEB  SON AL  AFFECTIONS.  461 

every  occasion  and  variety  of  need  which  life  may  bring.  Two 
or  more  friends  cannot  pledge  good  like  this,  except  they  know 
each  other  intimately  and  care  for  each  other  intensely,  and  can 
rely  confidently  on  the  continuance  of  their  present  disposition. 
When  these  conditions  are  present,  and  the  assurances  are  mutu- 
ally given,  the  contract  becomes  a  promise  of  the  most  sacred 
character,  for  the  reason  that  all  the  motives  to  its  fulfilment 
are  fitted  to  inspire  and  hold  to  fidelity.  Whatever  inner  or 
outer  motives  combined  may  urge  to  fidelity  are  here  conjoined, 
and  urge  to  faithfulness.  A  man  who  is  lightly  false  to  his 
friend  will  be  false  to  his  race,  to  himself,  and  to  his  God. 
Such  a  man  not  only  breaks  the  special  law  which  should  hold 
him  to  his  friend,  but  he  breaks  the  comprehensive  law  of 
moral  love  which  holds  him  to  duty  of  every  sort  and  to  all 
other  beings. 

Friendship  is  often,  and  always  tends  to  be,  romantic. 
There  is  a  strong  inclination  on  the  part  of  an  Friendship 
ardent  friend  to  clothe  his  friend  with  attractions  romantic, 
which  he  borrows,  more  or  less  freely  it  may  be,  from  his  own 
imagination,  and  hardly  cares  whether  the  friend  does  or  does 
not  deserve  to  wear  them.  All  the  affections  draw  largely  upon 
the  imagination,  and  the  imagination  is  easily  stimulated  to 
respond  to  their  demands.  To  invest  our  friend  with  excel- 
lences which  he  does  not  possess,  at  least  not  in  the  pure  and 
unalloyed  forms  and  in  the  same  perfection  which  we  fondly 
dream  of,  is  often  an  easy  task,  especially  if  we  therein  flatter 
ourselves  with  the  self-complacent  thought  that  one  so  excellent 
and  lovely  bestows  upon  ourselves  a  special  regard. 

§  260.  When  friendship  exists  between  man  and  woman, 
the  contrast  between  the  two  natures  as  they  supple- 
ment  one  another  adds  strength  to  its  special  emo-  between  man 
tions,  and  gives  to  its  experiences  a  peculiar  charm.  *"  »oman. 
If  there  may  be  special  hazard  in  such  friendships  under  many 
circumstances,  they  are  certain  to  exist  under  the  intimacies 
and  experiences  of  modern  life,'  especially  when  men  and  women 


462  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL   SCIENCE.     [§§  261,  262. 

share,  so  largely  as  they  must,  in  common  pursuits  and  common 
occupations  and  interests. 

§  261.  Friendship  between  man  and  woman  becomes  what  is 
technically  called  love  when  it  contemplates  the  inti- 
macy and  afifection  which  look  towards  marriage. 
What  is  true  of  friendship  in  its  intensest  forms  is  true  of  love 
in  its  most  eminent  and  emphatic  meaning.  It  is  liable  to  be 
passionate  in  more  than  one  sense.  It  appeals  to  the  afifectional 
and  sensuous  imagination,  and  therefore  is  most  energetic,  and 
consequently  needs  the  most  energetic  regulative  force  from  the 
conscience.  Love  in  its  highest  and  noblest  form  is  never 
reached  except  by  those  whose  vows  of  fidelity  are  enforced  by 
the  sense  of  duty,  and  in  whom  the  fulfilment  of  the  vows  thus 
begun  is  maintained  by  the  constantly  acknowledged  and  con- 
stantly repeated  control  and  elevation  of  the  affections  by  the 
conscience.  Of  love  in  this  its  highest  and  most  Christianized 
form,  the  memorable  lines  of  Coleridge  are  true,  even  in  a 
higher  and  a  more  varied  sense  than  he  intended :  — 


'£3' 


"  All  thoughts,  all  passions,  all  delights, 
Whatever  stirs  this  mortal  frame, 
All  are  but  ministers  of  Love, 
And  feed  his  sacred  flame." 

§  262.  It  is  worth  while  to  notice  that  love  for  woman  among 
^  t    ^  V,        t^G  ancients,  whether  outside  of  marriage  or  within 

Friendship        .... 

among  the  its  limits,  differed  strikingly  from  the  same  affection 
among  the  moderns.  Their  romance  of  love  seems 
to  have  been  transferred  to  friendship,  —  certainly  among  the 
cultured  classes,  of  whom  alone  literature  gives  any  report ;  and 
for  the  reason  that  women,  with  rare  exceptions,  failed  to  be 
educated  to  a  capacity  to  share  in  the  thoughts  and  feelings  and 
employments  of  men.  Friendship,  consequently,  was  limited 
to  men,  and  among  the  choicer  souls  seems  to  have  been  invested 
with  all  the  noblest  aspirations  and  associations  that  humanity 
ever  conceived  or  idealized.     With  a  few  exceptions,  the  two 


§  262.  SPECIAL  PERSONAL  AFFECTIONS.  463 

sexes  lived  in  a  different  world  of  thought  and  feeling,  and  met 
only  in  their  susceptibility  to  sensuous  charms  and  enjoyments, 
and  occasionally  to  those  aesthetic  attractions  which  culture  and 
art  presented  to  the  antique  taste.  There  are  some  indications 
of  a  return  to  these  ethnic  types  of  friendship,  among  both 
sexes,  in  those  circles  in  Christendom  in  which  Pagan  ideas  of 
'life  and  duty  are  affected. 

Christianity  has  raised  woman  in  some  sense  to,  or  towards,  a 
community  of  thought  and  feeling  with  man  in  science,  letters, 
and  art,  and  without  question,  so  far  as  they  share  in  the  same 
ethical  and  religious  emotions.  The  unselfishness  of  Christian- 
ity cherishes  the  amiable  impulses,  the  lively  sympathy,  the 
refined  tastes,  and  the  natural  grace,  that  are  pre-eminently 
feminine ;  while  the  Christian  ideal  softens  and  purifies  the 
feelings  of  those  whom  it  either  wins  or  reproves.  The  nations 
of  the  Teutonic  stock  invested  woman  with  a  certain  superiority 
that  was  thought  to  be  divine.  Christianity  hallowed  chivalry 
by  associations  that  were  peculiarly  its  own,  and  homage  to 
woman  became  the  duty  and  the  blessing  of  modern  times. 
So  soon  as  woman  began  to  occupy  the  rightful  place  in  the 
affections  which  was  enforced  and  justified  by  its  new  ethical 
standard,  a  new  set  of  obligations  followed,  the  unwritten  code 
of  which  sustains  and  purifies  while  it  stimulates  and  controls 
the  passion  of  love. 


464  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL   SCIENCE.  [§  263. 


CHAPTER  XIII. 

DUTIES  TO  FAMILY  AND  KINDRED. 

§  263.  The  relations  which  arise  from  natural  birth  and  com- 
munity of  descent,  with  the  affections  which  they 
relations         Inspire,  are  common  to  the  whole  race.     Every  hu- 
common  jjian  bciug  is  born  of  a  human  mother,  and  connected 

to  all  men. 

by  ties  of  kindred  with  at  least  one  human  being. 
These  ties  and  affections  are  often  numerous,  complex,  and 
controlling.  They  are  all  concerned  with  that  natural  and 
necessary  social  organism  which  we  call  the  family ;  which, 
again,  is  protected  and  regulated  by  the  State,  and  hallowed 
and  sanctioned  by  the  Church ;  both  of  which  organizations, 
in  their  turn,  are  comprehensive  and  permanent,  and  equally 
necessary  with  the  family  to  man's  well-being.  The  affec- 
tions which  the  family  originates  and  sustains  are  also  among 
the  most  intense  and  controlling  which  human  nature  knows. 
The  friendships  which  these  affections  originate  and  ripen,  and 
the  interests  which  they  inshrine  and  defend,  are  among  the 
most  sacred  of  which  human  nature  is  capable.  Hence  the 
duties  which  they  impose  are  recognized  as  the  most  sacred 
and  binding  which  human  nature  knows. 

Each  of  these  relationships  is  attended  by,  and  stimulates, 

special  and  peculiar  affections  ;  and  these  affections 

common  impel   to   Certain   duties.     The  affections  in   some 

affections        cascs   impel   to  and   originate   these   relationships, 

and  duties.  ^  ^  ^ 

and  in  some  cases  are  created  and  strengthened  by 

them  :  as  when  love  precedes  and  occasions  marriage,  and  after- 
wards takes  the  form  of  conjugal  affection  ;  and  as  parental  and 


§  264.]  DUTIES   TO  FAMILY  AND  KINDBEB.  465 

filial  love  follow  the  birth  of  children,  under  the  operation  of 
parental  care,  and  the  experience  of  its  benefits  and  blessings. 
These  affections  are  not  blind  and  unintelligent  instincts,  though 
their  growth   and  gathered  strength  are  largely  owing  to   the 
unconscious  workings   of  association  in   the   most   susceptible 
periods  of   life.     They  are  the  product  of  knowledge   in   the 
largest  sense  of  the  word,  i.e.,  of  the  experience  of  These  affec- 
benefits  and  expectations,  of  asking  and  receiving,   *^®"*^  *"^ 
of  longing  and   gratification,  on   the   part  of   one  intelligent 
person  with  respect  to  another.    We  cannot  trace  by  *"    ™"^*  * 
personal  consciousness,  nor  revive  in  actual  memory,  nor  inter- 
pret by  the  observation  of  infant-life,  many  of  the  processes  by 
which  the  infant  learns  to  look  to  its  nurse  or  its  mother  for  the 
supply  of  its  wants,  and  grows  into  confidence  and  gratitude  by 
means  of  its  manifold  experiences  of  help  and  of  affection. 

We  only  know  that  when  the  capacity  for  moral  reflection 
is  awakened  to  the  knowledge  of  moral  relations,  by  the  con- 
flicting claims  of  these  impulses  with  private  interests  or  pas- 
sions, that  then  the  sense  of  duty  to  parent  or  brother  or  sister 
springs  into  life,  which  arises  from  the  superior  claims  of  one  or 
all.  In  its  flrst  beginnings,  doubtless,  this  moral  love  concerns 
itself  with  the  external  actions,  and  the  feelings  which  impel  to 
them.  Subsequently  it  respects  the  feelings  themselves,  and 
the  processes  and  habits  by  which  they  are  formed  and  fixed,  till 
all  the  refined  and  complex  emotions  and  actions  which  concern 
the  family  life  are  recognized  as  matters  of  moral  obligation. 

§  264.  The  duties  to  family  and  kindred  are  enforced  and 
directed  by  the  following  considerations  :  —  Grounds  of 

(1)  These  duties,  in  the  double  form  of  feeling  tiiese  duties, 
and  action,  are  the  natural  and  inevitable  consequences  and  ex- 
pressions of  a  character  controlled  by  the  law  of  (i)  Natural 
duty.  Bring  an  unselfish  man  to  the  experience  and  *^  ^^^^^  "•*"• 
knowledge  of  these  relationships,  and  he  cannot  but  respond  to 
them  in  the  exercise  of  every  emotion  and  action  which  nature 
seems  to  dictate.     Whether  addressed  as  husband,  or  wife,  or 


466  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL   SCIENCE,  [§264. 

parent,  or  child,  he  will  promptly  respond  to  the  demand  made 
upon  his  sensibility,  as  being  alike  natural  and  moral*,  —  moral 
because  natural,  both  being  blended  into  one.  Only  a  selfish 
will  can  prevent  these  affections  and  acts  from  taking  their 
controlling  place  within  the  sensibility,  and  being  acted  out  in 
befitting  words  and  deeds.  Nothing  but  some  opposing  desire 
or  impulse  can  prevent  the  definite  recognition  of  the  right 
and  wrong  of  such  affections  and  acts  in  general.  When  the 
rational  conscience  and  natural  affection  thus  coincide,  we  can- 
not be  misled.  In  such  a  case,  the  question,  ''  Doth  not  nature 
itself  teach  you?  "  is  recognized  as  expressing  the  united  voice 
of  affection  and  conviction.  It  is  equally  obvious,  that,  other 
things  being  equal,  in  case  of  a  competition  of  the  claims  to 
our  affection  or  active  service  between  our  kindred  and  other 
"  neighbors,'*  our  kindred  should  be  preferred.  This  rule 
should  by  no  means  be  confounded  with  that  which  regards 
our  kindred  as  selfishly  identified  with  ourselves  in  mutual  de- 
pendence or  community  of  interest,  reputation,  or  social  posi- 
tion. While  it  is  natural  and  reasonable  that  this  kind  of 
family  feeling  and  relationship  should  prevail  in  deciding  many 
questions  of  benevolence  and  courtesy,  it  does  not  follow  that 
our  kindred  should  always  claim  our  first  attention.  All  that  is 
required  by  the  rule  is  this  :  that,  when  the  claims  of  the  two  are 
equal,  our  kindred  should  have  the  precedence.  This  follows 
from  the  unquestioned  fact,  that  a  person  controlled  by  an 
unselfish  purpose  under  the  training  of  family  life  would  be 
impelled  to  prefer  his  kindred  in  affection  and  act.  The  inev- 
itable and  natural  impulses  of  a  virtuous  will  may  be  assumed 
to  be  ipso  facto  an  act  of  duty. 

The  so-called  legitimate  love  of  family  may  indeed  be  mistaken  for, 

and  degenerate  into,  a  narrow  and  unscrupulous  selfishness, 

Selfish  and       which  is  the  more  insinuating  because  it  is  disguised  under 

egenera  e        ^^^  ^^^^  ^^  interest  and  sacrifice  for  others.     Family  pride, 

feeling.  family  quarrels,  family  combinations  and  intrigues,  nepotism, 

and  favoritism,  have  been  abundant  and  powerful  in  their 

influence  for  evil,  by  enlisting  in  their  service  the  selfish  passions  of  men, 


§2G5.]  DUTIES   TO  FAMILY  AND  KINDRED.  467 

and  have  sometimes  acted  with  irresistible  and  damaging  force  in  social 
life,  in  politics,  trade,  and  religion.  As  it  is  our  duty  to  love  our  neighbor, 
i.e.,  —  our  fellow-man,  —  as  a  moral  being,  or  as  a  member  of  a  moral  com- 
munity, so  it  is  our  duty  to  recognize  our  family  and  kindred  as  members 
of  the  greater  family  of  mankind,  and  subject,  as  such,  to  the  law  of 
universal  brotherhood;  but  always  under  moral  control  as  supreme. 

§  265.  (2)  Not  only  does  nature  teach  and  impel  to  these 
duties,  clearly  and  directly,  but  reflection  and  ex- 
perience confirm  and  enforce  these  teachings.     The  tioned"by 
members  of  our  family  are  our  nearest  neighbors,  and   reason  and 

coiiscicnco* 

for  that  reason  impose  on  us  the  foremost  claims  to 
love  and  assistance.  Parents,  brothers,  and  sisters  are  always, 
as  it  were,  within  our  reach,  and  constantly  at  our  hand,  or 
often  present  to  our  thoughts  when  farthest  removed  in  place, 
to  ask  and  receive,  to  give  and  take,  to  love  and  be  loved, 
to  suffer  and  be  comforted.  Their  wants  and  weaknesses  are 
known  to  us  more  perfectly  than  those  of  any  other  human 
beings.  They  solicit  and  excite  our  sympathy  more  readily 
than  any  others.  They  receive  our  tenderness  more  confid- 
ingly and  gratefully  than  the  sympathy  of  any  others.  We 
can  aid  them  more  effectively  than  those  who  know  them  less 
perfectly ;  and  they  naturally  prefer  to  receive  aid  from  us, 
except  under  circumstances  that  are  exceptional  and  against 
nature. 

So  far  as  the  family  affections  prevail  and  are  cherished, 
whether  in  the  form  of  natural  or  moral  emotions,   ^     „ 

'     Family 

they  furnish  experiences  and  opportunities  of  per-  friendships 
sonal  gratitude  and  friendship  which  are  unique  and  ^*'*"  **^* 
peculiar.  Even  when  they  are  very  imperfect  in  their  fruits 
and  realizations,  they  are  easily  recognized  as  of  the  greatest 
value,  and  as  consequently  clothed  with  the  highest  moral  au- 
thority. Every  human  being  acknowledges  the  sacredness  of 
the  obligation  to  secure  and  confirm  for  himself  the  friends  in 
his  own  household,  which  he  may  find  and  make  for  himself,  by 
faithfully  and  affectionately  discharging  the  constant  and  often 


468  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL  SCIENCE.  [§  265. 

trivial  duties  which  grow  out  of  these  friendships,  and  which 
are  essentuil  to  their  continuance  and  their  sacredness. 

If  we  recognize  special  inclinations  and  obligations  to  con- 
tract special  friendships  of  any  kind,  if  we  make  these  friend- 
ships sacred  and  permanent  by  giving  and  receiving  affection 
and  benefits,  obligations  of  tliis  kind  apply  with  pre-eminent 
authority  to  the  friends  which  we  find  and  may  secure  for  our- 
selves within  the  circle  of  our  family  and  kindred.  The  value 
of  limited  spheres  and  special  sources  of  special  affections  is 
obvious  from  human  nature  and  human  experience.  A  benevo- 
lence that  in  feeling  or  in  act  is  diffused  over  too  wide  a  sphere 
is  like  a  river  which  is  wasted  in  the  sands,  compared  with  one 
which  is  compressed  within  a  deep  and  narrow  channel.  These 
possibilities  become  more  and  more  clear  as  the  mind  is  taught 
by  reflection  and  experience.  As  social  opportunities  and  ad- 
vantages are  more  and  more  clearly  understood  in  the  experi- 
ences of  human  life,  the  more  and  more  clear  does  it  become 
to  the  honest  mind,  that  the  experiences  and  relationships  and 
opportunities  of  the  family,  as  opportunities  for  intimate  and 
sacred  friendships,  are  ordinarily  unequalled  by  any  other. 
Such  friendships  are  indeed  often  more  severely  tried,  not  so 
often  by  violent  wrenches  and  strains  as  by  petty  tensions 
and  irritations.  The  fickle  and  the  headstrong,  the  impatient 
and  the  testy,  the  romantic  and  the  unreflecting,  may  often  be 
weary  of  the  monotony  of  household  love  and  the  constant  and 
wearing  exactions  of  household  duties ;  but  those  who  are  un- 
faithful to  these  primal  obligations  usually  weary  of  all  others, 
and  those  who  turn  their  backs  upon  household  friends  are 
usually  incapable  of  lasting  friendships  of  any  kind.  The  in- 
different and  traitorous  to  their  relatives  are  usually  cold  and 
hard  and  treacherous  towards  human  kind.  The  members  of  the 
same  family  know  one  another  better  than  other  parties  can  do 
except  after  a  long  acquaintance.  It  might  be  objected,  indeed, 
that  for  this  reason  they  know  each  other's  faults  and  foibles 
more  completely,  and  that  knowledge  of   this  sort  is  fatal  to 


§266.]  DUTIES  TO  FAMILY  AND  KINDBED.  469 

the  warmest  and  most  faithful  fi-icDdships.  That  this  intimate 
knowledge  often  strains,  and  sometimes  weakens,  the  bonds  of 
custom  and  nature,  is  true  ;  but  it  also  furnishes  arguments  for 
patience  and  forbearance  and  all  the  higher  qualities  of  moral 
friendship,  in  which  self-control  and  forbearance  and  forgive- 
ness and  magnanimity  are  conspicuous. 

§  266.   (3)   Some  of  the  family  relationships  may  properly 
be  made  the  subject  of  sacred  and  permanent  con- 
tracts.    These  contracts  may  respect  the  affections  t^em  subject 
as  properly  as  the  actions.     Certain  special  affinities   *®  special 

contracts. 

may  be  assumed  and  required  as  the  essential  condi- 
tions of  entering  into  and  fulfilling  them.  The  affections  can- 
not, indeed,  be  created  or  evoked  by  a  vow  or  a  compact ;  but, 
when  they  exist,  they  can  be  regulated  and  stimulated  by  the 
will,  and  for  this  reason  can  be  retained  and  strengthened  by 
fixed  purposes  and  solemn  pledges.  The  family  naturally  be- 
gins with  a  promise  of  the  continuance  of  that  special  and  ex- 
clusive affection  which  is  supposed  to  exist  as  its  pre-condition. 
Such  pledges  are  the  essential  element  of  betrothal  and  mar- 
riage, and  give  meaning  to  their  ceremonials,  among  all  those 
communities  which  attach  special  significance  to  duties  of  any 
kind.  Fidelity  to  the  marriage-vow  includes  and  implies  fidelity 
in  conjugal  affection.  What  is  true  in  the  most  eminent  degree 
of  this  relation  may  and  should  be  true  of  all  the  life-long  and 
life-strong  alliances  which  unite  many  near  relatives  in  recipro- 
cal love  and  fidelity.  If  the  marriage-vows  should  be  sacredly 
regarded  as  the  essential  condition  of  the  family  life,  the  im- 
plied but  unspoken  contracts  which  hold  the  several  members 
of  a  family  in  mutual  confidence  should  be  as  conscientiously 
and  carefully  kept.  The  sacred  fire  which  hallows  the  domestic 
hearth  should  be  carefully  guarded  against  any  and  every  nox- 
ious vapor  that  may  damp  its  pure  and  glowing  flame.  Trifling 
occasions  of  discord  and  strife  should  be  watched  against  with 
sedulous  attention.  Family  quarrels  should  be  carefully  shunned 
and  avoided,  at  almost  any  cost,  as  demoralizing  curses,  worse 


470  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL   SCIENCE.  [§  266. 

than  a  blighting  pestilence ;   while  family  peace  and  harmony 
should  be  maintained  at  every  sacrifice  except  of  duty  or  honor. 

In  modern  times,  and  to  some  extent  among  circles  which  call  them- 
selves cultivated,  the  doctrine  of  free  love  or  elective  aflSni- 
The  doctrine     ^^^^  ^las  been  taught  as  the  rule  of  family  affection  in  various 
of  free  love       .  ,  ,        -i ,  «.       . 

and  elective      lorms,  more  or  less  plausible  or  offensive,  more  or  less  gross 

affinities.  or  refined.    This  doctrine  subjects  the  affections  and  obliga- 

tions of  husband  and  wife,  and  consequently  of  parent  and 
child,  to  the  uncertain  and  capricious  changes  of  uncontrolled  and  irre- 
sponsible emotion.  These  theories  have  the  following  features  in  common: 
They  fail  to  recognize  the  fundamental  truth,  that  love  is  little  more  than 
an  animal  passion,  except  as  it  is  energized  and  controlled  by  the  personal 
will  under  the  sanction  of  duty,  and  is  perpetuated  by  a  continued  and  un- 
broken vow,  such  as  underlies  the  character  and  should  control  the  man  in 
every  form  of  voluntary  and  reasonable  activity.  The  family  as  such  is  an 
institution  of  nature,  which  of  itself  elevates  the  special  obligations  of  duty 
above  the  impulses  of  sensuous  or  emotional  excitement,  and  oftentimes 
exalts  serious  sacrifices  of  feeling  and  of  act  into  moral  discipline  and 
culture  for  all  its  members. 

The  feelings  are  largely  under  our  control,  and  can  and  should  be  made 
the  subject  of  voluntary  discipline.    "While  it  is  true  that  feel- 
e  a   on  .^^  ^^  emotion  to  a  large  extent  determines  special  questions 

to  duty.  ®^  duty,  even  between  friends  who  are  united  the  most  close- 

ly, it  never  should  be  exalted  as  a  supreme  arbiter,  least  of 
all  in  relations  with  which  the  weakness  and  burdens  of  females  and  the 
helplessness  of  children  are  concerned.  It  would  seem,  that,  in  some  of 
these  cases,  the  appeal  to  the  sympathies  to  enforce  duty  was  the  strongest 
conceivable,  and  that  feeling  of  itself  would  impel  to  duties  which  excited 
passion,  and  what  is  misnamed  resistless  love,  cruelly  disown  when  either 
becomes  the  controller  of  the  affections  or  the  actions  The  man  who,  in 
theory  or  practice,  makes  inclination  or  passion  his  supreme  law  in  respect 
to  any  one  of  the  relations  of  kindred,  does  by  the  very  fact  abandon  alle- 
giance to  conscience  as  the  law  of  his  life.  The  position  is  at  first  view 
plausible,  that,  when  affection  and  sympathy  cease,  the  duties  appropriate 
to  the  family  relationships  can  no  longer  be  performed,  and  consequently 
that  all  obligations  cease.  What  gives  plausibility  to  this  doctrine  is  the 
truth  that  these  affections  are  in  some  form  themselves  obligatory.  But 
the  inference  which  is  derived  from  this  truth,  that,  when  these  affections 
are  wronged,  all  duties  cease,  is  a  transparent  sophism.  In  a  multitude  of 
cases,  even  when  the  object  of  these  affections  is  unworthy  of  them,  or 
fails  to  respond  to  them,  the  duties  of  service  and  kindness  still  remain. 
Now  and  then  it  may  be  that  the  bond  itself  may  be  lawfully  disowned, 
and  all  present  obligations  of  love  or  duty  may  be  cancelled.    Whether 


§§267,268.]     DUTIES   TO  FAMILY  AND  KIJSfDBED.  471 

all  the  obligations  which  arise  from  family  ties  can  ever  finally  cease,  is 
a  question  which  jiuzzles  the  most  scrupulous  as  well  as  the  most  enlight- 
ened casuists. 

§  267.  The  family  is  of  necessity  an  organized  community, 
involving  the  right  and  duty  to  govern  on  the  one 
hand,  and  the  obligation  to  obedience  on  the  other,   implies  au- 
Nature  indicates,  and  experience  confirms  the  truth,   thorityand 

obedience. 

that  the  husband  and  father  is  endowed  with  moral 
authority,  and  that  the  wife  and  children  and  other  relatives 
and  dependents  are  bound  to  obedience.  The  obligation  arises 
from  the  obvious  necessity  of  united  and  consenting  action,  in 
order  to  the  attainment  of  those  ends  which  are  essential  to 
the  sustentation  and  well-being  of  every  permanently  organized 
community.  It  is  not  always  enough,  that  affection  impels  to 
harmonious  and  efficient  action,  or  that  gratitude  and  confidence 
add  force  to  these  impulses.  Counter  impulses,  which  are 
manifold  and  strong,  are  certain,  in  human  experience,  to  inter- 
fere with  harmonious  and  efficient  action.  These  must  be  set 
aside  or  overcome  by  some  decisive  and  prevailing  word.  As 
human  beings  find  themselves  in  varying  degrees  of  knowledge, 
and  are  more  or  less  immature  in  habits  and  imperfect  in  char- 
acter, they  need  the  control  of  persons  invested  with  authority 
to  direct  and  command  them  ;  and  nature  has  designated  the 
individuals  who  are  thus  invested  by  means  of  the  relationships 
of  kindred. 

§  268.  In  other  words,  there  must  be  authority  in  some  one 
to  utter  the  final  word,  and  oblipration  to  obey  and    ....    , 

'  ^  -^  Anticipates 

enforce  this  word.  Nature  has  distinctly  indicated  and  supposes 
who  should  use  this  authority,  and  may  therefore 
rightly  claim  obedience.  The  persons  Indicated  may,  indeed, 
not  always  be  the  most  competent.  The  judgment  of  the  hus- 
band or  father  may  be  inferior  to  that  of  wife  or  children  ;  but 
similar  failures  are  incident  to  all  human  organizations,  and 
often  must  be  accepted,  because  to  substitute  another  lawmaker 
or  ruler,  except  for  decisive  reasons,  would  introduce  perpetual 


472  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL  SCIENCE.  [§  208. 

strife  and  discord.  In  extreme  cases,  other  expedients  are 
resorted  to,  in  order  to  remedy  the  defective  rule  of  the  family 
lawgiver.  If  the  family  is  the  only  recognized  government,  as 
it  is  under  a  patriarchal  constitution,  such  a  remedy  is  found 
within  the  family  itself.  If  the  family  recognizes  a  higher 
authority,  as  it  always  does  under  the  simplest  civil  organiza- 
tion, resort  in  the  extremest  necessity  may  be  had  to  the  civil 
magistrate  to  displace  the  tyrannical  or  incompetent  husband  or 
wife.  The  sphere  of  government  in  the  family  has  differed 
greatly  in  different  countries  and  at  different  times.  The  power 
of  the  parent  over  the  child,  and  of  the  husband  over  the  wife, 
has  been  exalted  to  the  most  absolute  and  irresponsible  despot- 
ism, or  limited  to  a  very  narrow  and  carefully  guarded  control ; 
but  this  power  has  always  been  recognized  as  essential  to  the 
existence  and  welfare  of  the  family  on  the  one  hand,  and  to 
the  existence  and  well-being  of  the  state  itself  on  the  other. 

It  is  important  to  notice  this  fact,  for  the  reason  that  it 
carries  with  it  the  truth,  that  man  is  not  merely  a  moral  being, 
and  as  such  held  to  an  ethical  responsibility  to  himself ;  nor, 
again,  that  he  is  also  social,  and  held  to  duties  to  his  fellow-men, 
which  again  bring  him  under  social  responsibilities,  and  expose 
him  to  their  favorable  or  unfavorable  judgments :  but,  that  he  is 
by  nature  fitted  for  certain  forms  of  organized  society,  and  that 
organized  society  is  invested  with  a  moral  authority,  which  his 
conscience  requires  him  to  recognize  and  obey. 

An  organized  society  for  moral  aims  involves  not  merely  the 
moral  authority  to  command,  with  the  contingency 
reward  and  of  virtuous  obedience  or  criminal  disobedience  ;  but 
pan  s  men  .  .^  involves  the  moral  authority  to  enforce  its  com- 
mands by  reward  and  punishment.  Whether  this  authority  is 
merely  penal,  —  i.e.,  whether  it  expresses  the  complacency  or  dis- 
pleasure of  the  ruler,  — or  whether  it  is  also  disciplinary,  makes 
no  difference,  so  long  as  such  control  is  essential  to  government 
for  moral  ends,  and  is  properly  exercised  in  the  family.  The 
family  can  scarcely  exist  without  it,  least  of  all  can  it  fuUii  the 


§269.]  DUTIES  TO  FAMILY  AND  KINDBED.  473 

jgaost  important  purposes  for  which  the  family  exists.  The 
ignorance  and  immaturity  of  the  child  require  instruction  and 
training ;  and  its  moral  immaturity  tempts  it  to  constant  devi- 
ations from  duty,  against  which  authority,  in  the  form  of 
command,  is  the  best  security.  In  this  the  family  antici- 
pates the  state ;  being  in  fact  the  state  in  miniature  as  feebly 
shadowed  forth,  and  reflecting  also  the  moral  and  spiritual 
dominion  which  the  Father  of  spirits  and  Ruler  of  men  exercises 
over  his  creatures. 

With  authority  the  parent  and  the  husband  are  invested  with 
certain  special  rights  over  the  other  members  of  the  family,  — the 
right  to  control  and  to  exact  obedience.  These  rights  are  not 
founded  in  the  natural  claim  of  property  on  the  part  of  the 
parent  in  the  child,  but  on  the  general  necessity  of  control  for 
the  sake  of  order  in  the  household. 

§  269.  It  is  almost  needless  to  observe,  and  yet  it  is  most 
necessary  to  remember,  that  the  family  is  itself  the  ^^  ortant 
most  important  school  of  morals  to  any  and  every  as  a  school 
community.      When   its  influences   are   exerted   in 
harmonious  operation  and  effect,  the  community  is  so  far  almost 
certain  to  maintain  strong  moral  convictions,  enlightened  views 
of  duty,  and  the  practical  control  of  the  animal  passions,  with 
a  more  or  less  perfect  exemplification  of  the  charities  of  life. 
In  proportion  as  the  family  affections  are  slighted,  and  its  more 
sacred  duties  are  dishonored,  conscience  itself  is  dishonored  if 
not  dethroned,  and  a  low  standard  of  ethical  theory  and  practice 
prevails. 

These  general  principles  are  the  foundation  and  enforcement 
of  the  special  duties  which  concern  the  family.  The  principles 
themselves  are  more  or  less  obvious  and  axiomatic.  The  same 
may  be  true  of  the  special  inferences  or  applications  which  we 
derive  from  them.  It  is  easy  to  formulate  and  accept  these 
maxims  of  both  classes,  but  not  so  easy  to  know  when  they 
apply,  and  with  what  varying  degrees  or  relative  force.  This 
is  no  more  than  what  is  universally  true  of  all  principles  of 


474  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL   SCIENCE.  [§  270. 

practice  when  applied  to  individual  cases.  It  does  not  follow, 
however,  that  for  this  reason  either  principles  or  rules  are  use^ 
less,  or  that  they  are  not  of  the  supremest  importance  in  direct- 
ing our  conduct  and  inspiring  our  feelings.  We  consider  these 
classes  of  duties  in  detail. 

§  270.   (1)  The  duties  which  concern  the  betrothal.     It  has 

already  been  explained,  that  marriage  is  a  contract 
duties:  the      or   Covenant   of    love   and    act,    which   is   binding 

through  life.  This  promise  is  naturally  preceded  by 
another  which  contemplates  the  future  and  final  exchange  of 
mutual  vows.  This  preliminary  contract,  it  is  obvious,  should 
be  founded  on  mutual  knowledge  and  cordial  sympathy.  The 
Primary  parties  who  pledge  themselves  to  one  another  should 
conditions.  know  cach  Other's  tastes  and  principles,  and  re- 
sources of  thought  and  action,  and,  above  all,  their  practical 
views  of  the  aims  and  conduct  of  life,  before  they  venture  to 
propose  to  live  in  the  most  intimate  of  human  associations  for 
possibly  thirty  or  sixty  years.  Such  knowledge  may  require 
but  little  time.  It  may  come  by  the  insight  of  a  brief  ac- 
quaintance, to  persons  who  can  sagaciously  interpret  character 
by  a  single  sign  or  word,  or  it  may  be  the  slow  and  gradual 
growth  of  a  protracted  intimacy ;  but  the  knowledge  should  be 
gained,  or  the  promise  is  rash,  and  may  be  almost  or  altogether 
immoral.  In  small  and  simple  communities,  such  as  consist  of 
a  few  scores  of  families,  such  knowledge  of  the  significant  indi- 
cations of  character,  or  the  more  subtile  signs  of  congeniality, 
is  easily  gained.  In  the  lai-ger  and  more  complicated  com- 
munities of  modern  civilization,  the  indications  of  character 
may  be  less  easily  interpreted,  and,  possibly,  less  cared  for. 
Ethically  speaking,  they  are  required  as  the  necessary  pre- 
requisites of  a  morally  lawful  matrimonial  engagement,  for  the 
simple  reason  tliat  marriage  is  not  allowed  in  the  court  of 
conscience  without  assurance  of  such  sympathy,  either  actual 
or  attainable,  as  will  make  the  life-long  friendship  a  blessing 
to  both   partie,s.     To   enter  upon   marriage,  or  a  promise  of 


§271.]  DtfTIES   TO  FAMILY  AND  KINDRED.  475 

marriage,  except  with  this  preliminary  knowledge,  is  unlawful, 
because  it  involves  a  risk  of  possible  disappointment  and  un- 
happiness  to  one  or  both  parties,  and  possibly  to  many  others. 

Other  conditions  are,  the  relative  age  of  the  parties,  their 
habits  and  associations  in  life,  their  health  present 

,.,,..  »     T  1         ,       Secondary. 

and  prospective,  their  obligations  of  duty  already 
pledged  to  other  persons,  the  consent  and  sympathy  of  relatives 
and  friends,  and  a  variety  of  other  circumstances  which  are 
supposable.  They  are  all  material,  for  the  reason,  that,  while 
a  prospective  marriage  is  of  supreme  importance  to  the  parties 
themselves,  it  also  involves  more  or  fewer  important  conse- 
quences to  other  persons.  Every  human  being  is  a  member  of 
the  community,  and  can  only  live  ethically  as  he  respects  and 
recognizes  his  relations  to  those  of  its  members  with  whom  he 
is  brought  into  frequent  association.  It  is  well-nigh  useless 
to  ask  the  question  whether  one  or  both  parties  should  refrain 
from  a  contract  of  marriage  if  the  parents  or  other  relatives 
withhold  their  favor  or  their  consent,  or  how  far  the  consent  or 
prohibition  of  parents  should  be  considered,  or  what  should  be 
the  relative  importance  which  should  be  attached  to  any  single 
consideration :  it  is  enough  to  know  that  all  may  be  of  impor- 
tance ;  while  hone  need  always  be  decisive,  always  excepting 
the  absence  of  that  special  sympathy  or  congeniality  which  is 
required  for  the  assurance  that  the  marriage  will  be  followed  by 
the  fulfilment  of  the  vows  with  which  every  marriage  should 
begin. 

§  271.  The  question  may  be  asked,  whether  the  vows  of  a 
betrothal  can  ever  be  lawfully  broken.  We  reply  :  ^^ 
When  made,  they  are  not  understood  to  be  beyond  promise  ever 
recall,  and  they  ought  not  to  be  beyond  recall. 
However  positively  they  are  uttered,  if  any  obstacle  to  the 
fulfilment  of  the  promise  should  be  discovered  or  interposed, 
the  promise  should  be  annulled,  however  solemnly  it  may  have 
been  made.  If  the  promise  was  irrevocably  pledged,  it  should 
be  regarded  as  an  unlawful  promise,  —  a  promise  such  as  the 


476  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL   SCIENCE.  [§  271. 

parties  had  no  right  to  make,  the  intent  and  meaning  of  a 
betrothal  bemg  a  contingent  contract.  It  does  not  follow 
from  these  facts,  however,  that  the  wanton  and  causeless 
breach  of  a  promise  of  marriage  may  not  be,  and  often  is 
not,  a  recklessly  and  inexcusably  criminal  act,  when  judged  of 
in  the  court  of  conscience. 

The  inquiry  is  often  urged,  whether  the  discovery  of  a  want 
of  that  affection  which  the  betrothal  supposes,  and  the  marriage- 
vow  promises  to  give,  justifies,  in  every  case,  the  violation  of 
such  a  promise.  Our  reply  has  already  been  anticipated,  and, 
in  theory,  we  can  give  no  other :  a  promise  to  marry  is  a  prom- 
ise to  promise,  at  some  future  time,  to  exercise  that  affection 
which,  by  the  supposition,  it  is  impossible  should  ever  be  felt. 
If  it  is  impossible  to  fulfil  such  a  vow,  it  is  immoral  to  make  it. 
Whether  it  will  or  would  be  impossible  to  fulfil  it,  provided  the 
party  concerned  were  to  deal  honestly  with  himself  or  herself, 
is  altogether  another  question,  upon  the  decision  of  which  must 
turn  the  main  question  in  the  case. 

It  is,  in  some  sense,  usually  understood  to  be,  as  it  ought 
always  to  be  in  fact,  a  conditional  promise,  — a  promise  condi- 
tional upon  the  continuance  of  that  affection  which  is  presumed 
and  declared  to  exist ;  but  it  is  not  in  any  sense  absolute  and 
irrevocable  like  the  marriage-covenant. 

The  reason  why  the  community  visits  a  withdrawal  from  a 
promise  of  marriage  so  often  with  its  condemning  judgment  is, 
that  its  members  either  believe  that  the  promise  originally  made 
was  not  inspired  by  real  affection  and  an  honest  purpose,  or 
that  some  other  motive  leads  to  its  violation.  That  the  person 
who,  in  all  honesty,  withdraws  from  such  engagement,  owes 
every  possible  reparation  and  sacrifice  to  the  person  from  whom 
he  or  she  is  parted,  is  most  obvious ;  and  that  the  fulfilment  of 
such  obligation  is  enforced  by  the  sympathy  of  every  moral 
community,  is  equally  obvious. 

If  to  break  a  promise  of  marriage  is  so  serious  an  offence  of 
itself,  it  is  diflflcult  to  find  language  which  can  adequately  ex- 


272.]         DUTIES   TO  FAMILY  AND  KINDBE. 


press  the  criminality  of  seduction  under  the  shelter  of  such  a 
promise,  and  the  subsequent  desertion  of  its  victim.  Whether 
the  crime  of  desertion  is  consented  to  after  so  fatal  a  crime, 
makes  little  difference.  The  man  who  commits  it,  under  any 
circumstances,  deserves  the  reprobation  of  his  fellow-men,  and 
is  justly  judged  as  guilty  of  the  most  selfish  cruelty  towards 
one  who  has  been  disappointed  of  his  affections,  his  truth,  and 
his  honor. 

S  272.  (2)  Marriage  constitutes  two  separate  persons  into  one 
family.  Ideally  conceived,  it  is  a  permanent  rela-  Marriage,  its 
tion  between  two  persons  opposite  in  sex,  which  is  nat"^e- 
effected  b}^  a  covenant  of  continued  duty  and  affection.  This 
friendship,  as  we  have  seen,  should  be  founded  on  intimate 
acquaintance  and  controlling  sympathies.  These  sympathies 
usually  arise  from  similarity  of  temperament  and  practical  aims. 
Its  friendships  are  often  stronger,  rather  than  weaker,  by  reason 
of  opposite  and  contrasted  characteristics  ;  provided  these  sup- 
plement one  another  in  a  mutual  dependence,  and  do  not  lead 
to  positive  antipathy.  Physically  conceived,  marriage  implies 
sexual  union,  which  should  be  invariably  elevated  and  purified 
by  spiritual  and  personal  affection.  Fornication  and  adultery 
in  marriage  are  justly  regarded  as  especially  degrading,  and  as 
a  violation  of  the  most  sacred  confidence  and  the  most  solemn 
vows.  Hence  they  are  visited  by  prompt  and  general  social 
condemnation. 

The  social  and  moral  importance  of  marriage  is  attested  by 
the  manifold  ceremonies  which  attend  its  solemniza-   ,^ 

Its  social 
tion,  and  the  religious  rites  by  which  it  is  supposed   and  moral 

to  be  hallowed.  These  all  attest  the  conviction  ^^^^^  *"^®* 
among  men,  that  the  family  takes  the  foremost  place  among 
human  institutions  ;  and  the  obligations  which  create  and  grow 
out  of  it  are  among  the  most  sacred  which  can  move  the  feel- 
ings and  control  the  conduct  of  men.  These  obligations  may 
be  superficially  interpreted,  and  very  imperfectly  fulfilled  ;  but 
the  human  conscience  almost  universally  regards  the  rudest  and 


478  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL  SCIENCE.  [§  272. 

roughest  household  as  in  some  sense  worthy  of  respect  and  hom- 
age, and  every  domestic  hearth  as  in  some  sense  a  sacred  altar. 
Marriage  is  constituted  by  a  covenant  which  is  permanent. 
If  the  vows  which  originate  and  maintain  it  are  to 

The  corenant. 

.accomplish  the  best  results,  if,  indeed,  they  are  to  be 

in  fact  fulfilled,  they  must  include  the  pledge,  *'  till  death  us  do 
part."  The  responsibilities  assumed,  and  the  consequences 
incurred,  to  the  parties  and  to  the  community,  are  so  serious  and 
so  long-continued  as  to  require  a  covenant  which  extends  over  the 
lifetime  of  one  of  the  parties.  No  other  covenant  would  satisfy 
that  kind  and  degree  of  affection  which  marriage  presupposes ; 
and  whatever  ideal  such  affection  proposes  ought  to  be  made  a 
matter  of  promise.  Whatever  is  promised  should  be  fulfilled. 
The  community  also  is  so  far  interested  in  its  results  as  to  be 
justified  in  requiring  that  a  promise  of  union  for  life  should 
be  made,  and  adhered  to.     If  the  affection  which  is 

Its  per- 
manent promised  is  for  any  reason  not  maintained,  many, 
obligation.  .^  ^^^  ^jj^  ^^  ^^^^  Other  duties  involved  can  be  re- 
quired, and  ought  to  be,  for  the  welfare  of  all  the  other  parties 
who  are  more  immediately  affected  by  the  marriage,  and  for 
the  welfare  of  the  community.  The  doctrine  of  free  love, 
which  teaches  that  the  obligations  of  either  married  party  are 
binding  no  longer  than  what  is  called  mutual  sympathy  remains, 
anticipates  and  fosters  those  impulses  which  tend  to  a  separa- 
tion. It  dethrones  the  will  from  its  appropriate  dominion  over 
the  feelings,  and  releases  the  emotions  from  their  responsibility 
to  the  conscience.  The  stern  lessons  of  responsibility  to  the 
llaw,  for  all  the  burdens  which  marriage  involves,  is  also  a 
wholesome  and  most  necessary  discipline  to  the  duties  of  good 
citizenship  and  of  personal  responsibility  in  respect  to  a  rela- 
tionship which  is  so  serious  in  its  consequences  to  the  husband, 
the  wife,  to  helpless  and  perhaps  sickly  children,  and  to  a  larger 
or  smaller  circle  of  relatives  and  neighbors  whose  feelings  and 
actions  are  seriously  affected  by  the  disruption  of  the  marriage- 
ties.     All   these   consequences  of  marriage  make   it  evident, 


§273.]  DUTIES   TO  FAMILY  AND  KINDRED.  479 

at  least,  that  the  question  of  the  termination  of  the  marriage- 
contract  should  never  be  left  to  the  parties  concerned.  The 
community  in  particular  and  in  general  are  too  sensitively  and 
seriously  interested  in  its  results,  not  to  require  that  the 
weightiest  reasons  should  be  offered  and  sanctioned- whenever 
divorce  is  allowed,  and  that  such  conditions  should  be  imposed 
as  to  make  every  possible  reparation  to  the  injured  party  or 
parties,  and  also  to  express  the  sensibility  of  the  suffering 
community. 

§  273.  In  the  simplest  states  of   society,  where  the  family 
represents  the  state,  or  where  woman  is  lost  sis^ht 

^  '^         Divorce  in 

of  as  a  person  who  is  equal  to  man,  the  right  of  earlier 
sundering  the  marriage-bond  has  often  been  exer-   *'™*^** 
cised  by  the  husband  or  the  head  of  the  patriarchal  household. 
The  wife  in  such  a  household  is  practically  the  slave  of  the 
husband,  and  marriage  in  the  ethical  sense  of  the  relation  can 
scarcely  be  said  to  exist.     This  right  of  ' '  putting  away  the 
wife'*   doubtless  existed  among   the  customs  of  the  Hebrew 
people  when  the  Mosaic  law  was  given,  and  was  allowed  to 
remain  because  of  the  "  hardness  of  the  hearts  "  of  the  people  ; 
in  other  words,  because  of  their  practical  incapacity  to  receive 
and  act  upon  a  better  theory  of   marriage,   or  more  salutary 
restrictions  upon  the  traditional  right  of   divorce.     The  Law- 
giver for  Christendom  enacted  no  formal  law  upon   xheiawof 
the  general  subject  of  divorce,  but  simply  announced   Ciirist. 
that  no  reason  for  a  separation  was  valid  except  sexual  sin, 
and  that  such  separation  for  any  other  reason  involves  the  crime 
of   adultery  in  both  parties.     He  also  referred  to  the  earlier 
time,   "the  beginning,"  in  which  the  union  in  marriage  con- 
stituted the  parties  "one  flesh,"  by  divine  intention  and  ordi- 
nance.     To  this  original  law,  Moses   suffered   the   exception 
referred  to,  because  of  the  "hardness  of  the  hearts"  of  the 
people.     The   directions   of   the   Apostle   Paul   re-  xhe  teaching 
spect  a  possible  separation  of  husband  and  wife,   ^^  ^*"*- 
and  a  practical  disruption  of  the  family,  in  consequence  of  a 


480  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL   SCIENCE.  [§  273. 

difference  of  religious  faith.  They  prescribe,  "in  the  name  of 
the  Lord/'  that  the  wife  should  not  depart  from  her  husband  ; 
but  that,  if  he  should  leave  her,  she  should  remain  unmarried. 
The  apostle  further  advises,  in  his  own  name,  that,  if  either 
non-Christian  party  should  separate  or  withdraw  from  the  other, 
he  should  depart  in  peace,  without  resistance  or  complaint. 
Nothing  is  said  or  intimated  as  to  whether,  if  the  party  thus 
deserted  should  desire  to  be  married  again,  such  marriage, 
should  be  allowed.  These  teachings  plainly  provide  for  no 
dissolution  of  the  marriage-covenant,  except  on  grounds  of 
what  is  called  fornication,  or  its  equivalent  as  a  breach  of  the 
marriage-vow,  if  such  an  equivalent  may  be  supposed. 

In  applying  these  principles  to  modern  life,  many  contend 
that   offences   occur   against   the   law  of   marriage 

Application  °  ^ 

to  modern  which  are  equally  criminal  with  sexual  sin.  They 
urge,  for  example,"  the  offence  of  o^xju  and  long- 
continued  desertion,  and  of  brutal  neglect  and  cruelty ;  both 
of  which,  it  is  contended,  imply  such  an  open  and  deliberate 
repudiation  of  the  other  party  as  may  be  taken  to  be  con- 
structive adultery.  Whatever  view  may  be  taken  of  this  doc- 
trine as  a  question  for  theological  or  ethical  speculation,  it 
is  clear,  that,  for  legislation  and  actual  practice,  a  decree  of 
final  separation  may  be  properly  pronounced  between  two  parties 
for  the  protection  of  the  person  and  property  of  the  one  who 
is  wronged,  while  the  liberty  of  marrying  again  should  be 
reserved  only  for  the  party  which  suffers  from  the  grossest 
offence  against  the  marriage-vow.  The  prohibition  to  re-marry, 
in  every  other  case  of  separation,  not  only  has  the  highest 
conceivable  ethical  sanction,  but  is  plainly  of  permanent  appli- 
cation and  importance.  Such  a  prohibition  seems  absolutely 
essential  in  order  to  secure  to  the  marriage-relation  the  neces- 
sary sacredness  and  authority,  and  to  guard  against  manifold 
impulses  and  temptations  to  trifle  with  its  duties  or  its  vows. 
A  generation  of  human  beings  who  enter  upon  the  marriage- 
relation  with  the  suspicion,  even,  that  possibly  they  may  have 


§274.]  DUTIES   TO  FAMILY  AND  KINDRED.  481 

occasion  to  break  its  bonds  and  recall  their  vows,  must  neces- 
sarily become  degenerate  in  their  views  of  all  the  duties  of  life, 
and  be  prepared  to  yield  for  trivial  causes  to  the  solicitations  of 
any  sort  of  temptation  or  provocation.  The  common  sentiment 
of  the  community  ought  to  enforce  the  obligations  of  the  mar- 
riage-contract, as  it  values  loving  parents,  obedient  children, 
and  happy  homes.  Without  these,  no  community  can  be  truly 
prosperous  and  free,  whatever  be  its  education,  its  culture,  its 
science,  its  government,  or  its  religious  faith  or  zeal. 

§  274.  (3)  Parents  and  children  are  connected  with  each  other 
by  a  physical  relationship,  the  knowledge  of  which 

,  ,.  .  rr^,  .     n.      (3)  The 

awakens  strong  and  peculiar  emotions.     Ihese  indi-   parental  reia- 

cate  and  imi^el  to  special  duties.     It  is  from  its  par-   *»*"'=  natural 
^  ^  *.  basis  for. 

ents  that  the  child  receives  its  bodily  life,  sharing 
largely  therewith  their  physical  and  psycho-physical  capacities 
and  tendencies,  which  coustituCe  a  psychical  foundation  for  quick 
and  responsive  sympathies,  and  for  a  ready  understanding  and 
effective  union  in  thought  and  feeling,  in  taste  and  temper. 
Hence  the  readiness  with  which  parents  and  children  can  enter 
into  joint  activities,  and  the  completeness  with  which  they  share 
one  another's  life,  with  the  additional  advantage  that  comes 
from  the  early  period  at  which  the  processes  of  their  blended 
life  begin,  and  the  completeness  with  which  the  life  of  the 
parents  (pre-eminently  of  the  mother)  and  children  are  given  up 
to  one  another  during  the  earliest  years. 

Not  only  does  the  child  receive  its  life  from  its  parents,  but 
it  is  at  once  thrown  upon  parental  care  for  the  continuance  and 
comfort  of  that  life.  The  first  appeal  which  it  makes  to  the 
parent's  heart  is  by  its  utter  helplessness, — an  appeal  which  if 
made  to  a  stranger,  by  a  waif  or  a  foundling,  would  touch  and 
move  the  feelings,  but,  when  made  to  the  mother,  brings,  with 
the  food  from  her  breasts,  the  love  of  adoption  and  welcome 
which  is  stronger  than  death.  The  mind  which  is  able  to  discern 
a  call  and  command  of  duty  in  any  impulses  and  indications 
of  nature  cannot  fail  to  interpret  these  experiences  as  the  voice 


482  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL   SCIENCE.  [§  074. 

of  conscience  and  the  will  of  God.  As  the  child  is  developed 
into  conscious  life,  its  opening  intelligence  interests  the  most 
stolid,  while  the  playful  and  insinuating  ways  of  artless  infancy 
wind  about  the  heart  of  the  partial  parent  a  network  of  strong — 
none  the  less  strong  because  most  tender  —  ties.  The  utterances 
of  the  responsive  affections  are  the  voice  of  nature  speaking 
within  the  soul:  *' Some  one  should  care  for  these  helpless 
dependents,  and  of  all  others  I  am  called  to  do  this  duty." 
The  earliest  and  foremost  duty  of  the  parent  is  to  provide 
for  the  wants  of  the  child.  The  simplest  wants  of 
and  constant  infancy  comc  first,  as  of  food  and  clothing,  defence 
duty  of  the     from  the  elements  and  disease,  from  mental  terror 

parent. 

and  irritation.  As  the  powers  are  developed,  and 
with  them  novel  wants,  these  wants  are  successive  calls  of 
nature,  to  each  of  which  the  heart  and  conscience  of  the  parent 
respond.  These  wants  are  not  all  bodily  wants,  nor  does  the 
most  important  training  concern  the  physical  man.  As  reason 
is  expanded  and  matured,  a  new  set  of  needs  appear,  and  be- 
come more  and  more  imperative,  —  the  needs  of  stimulus  and 
guidance  to  a  more  independent  activity  and  complete  self- 
reliance.  The  duty  of  the  parent  does  not  stop  with  the  train- 
ing of  the  powers  to  that  general  'independence  and  self-reliance 
which  qualify  the  child  to  act  as  a  man  ;  but  thry  require  such 
guidance  as  may  train  him  to  a  special  calling  or  profession  by 
which  he  can  gain  for  himself  an  independent  livelihood,  and 
render  some  definite  service  to  his  fellow-men.  The  impulses 
of  affection  and  conscience  make  it  the  duty  of  every  parent 
to  give  to  each  of  his  children  a  general  and  special  education. 
Wealth,  social  position,  entire  independence  of  fortune,  furnish 
no  exception  to  this  rule.  Every  child  is  certain  to  need  such  a 
training  as  a  means  of  support  or  a  condition  of  independence, 
or  a  resource  in  sorrow,  or  a  qualification  for  greater  influence 
Duty  to  ^"f^  usefulness. 

educate.  xhe  duty  and  responsibility  of  educating  his  chil- 

dren is  imposed  upon  the  parent  by  the  economy  of  nature, 


§274.]  DUTIES   TO  FAMILY  AND  KINDRED.  483 

for  the  reason  that  no  other  person  ought  to  feel  so  great  an 
interest  in  imparting  this  benefit  to  those  whom  he  loves  so  ten- 
derly. The  state  in  its  organic  capacity,  and  individual  benefi- 
cence, may  provide  the  appliances  and  the  means  of  culture 
which  the  resources  of  individuals  can  or  will  not  supply ;  but 
how  far  a  child  shall  avail  himself  of  these  benefits  must  be  left 
for  the  parent  to  decide.  There  is  one  exception  to  this  rule. 
The  state  may  compel  the  parent  to  train  his  children  to  that 
degree  of  culture  which  the  community  believes  is  necessary  for 
its  own  well-being.  So  far  as  education  or  knowledge  is,  in  the 
judgment  of  the  community,  seen  to  be  necessary'for  its  con- 
tinued existence  and  prosperity,  so  far  may  the  state  compel  the 
parent  to  educate  his  child,  but  no  farther  (§  280).  Beyond 
that  limit  the  parent  is  the  natural  and  responsible  guardian  of 
the  interests  of  his  child ;  and  with  his  freedom  no  other  person 
and  no  other  organization  may  interfere. 

The  parent  is  morally  bound  to  provide  for  his  children  until 
they  are  able  with  the  best  advantage  to  provide  for  jq  provide 
themselves.  When  this  limit  is  reached,  can  be  de-  for  children. 
termined  by  no  fixed  rule  or  period  of  time.  This  limit  will 
vary  very  greatly  with  the  calling  to  which  the  child  is  destined, 
with  the  strength  and  health  of  the  child,  and  with  the  disposi- 
tion of  both  parent  and  child.  The  duty  itself  is  taught  by 
nature,  and  usually  enforced  by  parental  affection.  If  it  is  a 
duty  to  love  one's  children,  it  is  a  duty  to  provide  for  them  till 
their  own  filial  affection  would  suggest  and  impose  the  duty  of 
becoming  independent  of  parental  help,  and  assuming  to  them- 
selves the  duty  of  self-support.  The  duty  of  helping  their 
children  to  a  respectable  independence  in  the  beginnings  of  a 
business  or  a  professional  life  is  suggested  and  enforced  at  once 
by  parental  affection,  and  a  regard  to  family  comfort  and  social 

"  *  To  cherish 

That  parents  ought  to  cherish  and  express  their  affection 
affection  for  their  children,  is  obvious.  In  their  ^'  *""* 
earliest  years,  children  thrive  best  in  the  sunlight  of  parental 


484  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL  SCIENCE.  [§  274. 

tenderness  and  sympathy.  They  need  and  rejoice  in  this 
more  than  in  any  and  in  all  things  else.  It  is  never  superfluous 
to  recognize  and  enforce  parental  affection  as  a  duty ;  inas- 
much as,  however  strong  it  may  be  by  nature,  it  constantly 
needs  to  be  stimulated  and  directed  by  the  conscience,  in  the 
light  of  the  moral  aims  and  moral  destiny  of  the  objects  of 
the  parents'  love  and  pride.  However  greatly  children  are 
loved,  with  natural  affection,  they  often  try  the  patience,  and 
disappoint  the  hopes,  and  wound  the  pride,  and  sometimes  break 
the  hearts,  of  those  who  have  expended  their  care  and  wasted 
their  wealth  upon  them.  Parental  love  is  often  a  foolish  and 
fond  affection,  that  fails  to  recognize  and  honor  the  claims  of 
duty  as  supreme.  Weak  and  indulgent  emotion  trains  the  child 
to  be  exacting,  selfish,  and  ungrateful.  Parental  affection,  for 
its  tenderness  and  patience,  and  readiness  to  pardon,  is  rightly 
taken  as  the  symbol  of  the  divine  goodness  ;  and  yet  it  needs 
itself  to  be  directed  by  the  law  of  duty  to  God,  and  quickened 
and  purified  by  faith  in  his  guardianship. 

Parents  should  also  study  and  aim  to  secure  the  respect  and 

mil  *!.  A  confidence  of  their  children  till  the  end  of  their  own 
Till  the  end 

of  their  lives.     To  this  end,  they  should  respect  their  devel- 

oped activity  and  growing  independence.  To  do 
this  is  not  always  easy ;  and  yet  it  is  essential  if  parents  would 
have  their  children,  when  adult,  to  mingle  respect  with  their 
love,  and  the  independence  of  equals  with  the  recollected  ten- 
derness of  infant  confidence  and  gratitude.  Perhaps  no  duty 
is  more  diflflcult,  while  none  is  more  important,  than  the  obliga- 
tion to  respect  the  self-relying  and  opening  manhood  of  the 
growing  boy,  and  sympathetically  to  recognize  the  tastes  and 
preferences  of  the  budding  womanhood  of  the  gushing  girl,  and 
to  welcome  both  to  the  threshold  of  the  earnest  and  independ- 
ent life  which  so  soon  awaits  them.  Upon  the  judicious  and 
kindly  treatment  of  children  by  parents  during  these  transition 
periods,  depend  the  most  important  results  in  the  perpetuation 
of  family  affection  between  parents  and  children  till  the  end  of 


§274.]  DUTIES   TO  FAMILY  AND  KINDBED.  485 

life.  Family  traditions  and  family  affections  and  family  pride, 
which  connect  successive  generations  by  links  of  love  and  respect 
which  are  thus  united,  are  better  than  any  other  patrimony. 

The  duties  of  children  to  their  parents  are  summed  up  in  the 
directions  to  obey,  to  confide  in,  to  love  and  to  care 
for,  —  or,  in  a  single  word,  to  honor,  —  them  to  the  children  to 
end  of  their  lives.     The  only  regulating  force  which   **®"0'"  *'*«*'^ 

parents. 

they  need,  in  respect  to  the  direction  and  energy  of 
these  specific  affections  to  which  nature  prompts  and  trains 
them,  is  that  these  affections  shall  not  mislead  them  to  offend 
against  the  more  comprehensive  laws  of  duty  towards  God  and 
their  fellow-men.  The  Christian  precept  is  comprehensive  and 
clear:  "Children,  obey  your  parents  in  the  Lord,  for  this  is 
right ;  "  "  Children,  obey  your  parents  in  all  things,  for  this  is 
well-pleasing  to  the  Lord.*'  The  demands  of  parental  authority 
may  be  offensive  to  the  conscience,  and  contradict  the  acknowl- 
edged law  of  God.  In  every  such  case,  they  cannot  bind  the 
conscience,  at  least  in  the  form  in  which  they  are  given.  When 
duties  to  parents  seem  to  conflict  with  other  duties,  the  appar- 
ent conflict  will  usually  suggest  some  adjustment  which  shall 
avoid  a  too  violent  shock  to  the  most  sacred  of  the  natural 
affections. 

Such  shocks  need  not  often  occur.  When  they  are  avoided, 
and  when  the  claims  and  commands  of  parents  are  In  harmony 
with  those  of  our  fellow-men  and  of  God,  there  can  be  no  more 
effective  discipline  to  moral  goodness  and  affection  of  every 
kind  than  is  furnished  by  the  discipline  of  filial  obedience  and 
honor.  God  himself  is  brought  the  nearest  to  us,  and  in  the 
most  moving  ways,  when  he  is  revealed  to  us  as  our  Father  in 
heaven ;  and  no  appeal  to  our  feelings  and  our  faith  inspires 
in  us  greater  confidence  and  love  than  the  declaration,  "  If  ye, 
then,  being  evil,  know  how  to  give  good  gifts  to  your  children, 
how  much  more  shall  your  Father  which  is  in  heaven  give  good 
things  to  them  that  ask  him  ?  " 

The  rights  of  parents  over  their  children,  and  of  children 


486  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL  SCIENCE.  [§  274. 

with  respect  to  the  parents,  are  summed  up  as  the  essential 
conditions  to  each  party  for  the  discharge  of  its  appropriate 
functions.  They  are  never  exacting  and  inflexible  claims  on 
the  part  of  those  in  whom  they  are  vested.  They  are  never 
to  be  claimed  for  their  own  private  benefit  or  welfare  (§  222.) 
They  exist  as  conditions  of  the  welfare  of  the  child  upon  whom 
the  claim  is  enforced,  or  of  the  family  of  which  the  child  is  a 
member.  They  should  be  enforced  no  further  than  the  well- 
being  of  a  part  or  the  whole  of  the  family  requires.  They 
cease  altogether  to  exist  so  soon  as  the  reason  for  their  exist- 
ence is  terminated. 


§275.]  THE  STATE:    ITS  NATURE,  ETC.  487 


CHAPTER  XIV. 

THE  STATE  :  ITS  NATURE,  FUNCTIONS,  AND  AUTHORITY. 

§  275.  After  the  family  comes  the  state,  with  its  peculiar 
relationships,  and  the  affections  and  duties  which 
these  relationships  involve  and  enforce.  It  is  almost  grows  from 
superfluous  to  say  that  the  state  naturally  grows  out  '^  *""  ^* 
of  the  family,  inasmuch  as  every  family  is  already  a  state 
in  miniature.  Parents  are  necessarily  legislators,  judges,  and 
executors  of  law,  in  the  discharge  of  their  appropriate  func- 
tions as  parents.  Children  and  dependents  are  naturally  and 
necessarily  treated  as  subjects.  The  moment  either  pass  over 
the  threshold  of  their  home,  they  recognize  a  larger  family  with- 
out, in  which  there  is  equal  need  for  rule  and  an  equal  duty  of 
subjection  for  the  sake  of  public  order  and  the  general  well- 
being  of  the  community.  Should  a  few  families  exist  side  by 
side,  they  would  shortl}^  become  so  connected  with  one  another, 
not  to  say  complicated,  by  consenting  and  dissenting  interests, 
as  to  be  forced  to  organize  themselves  into  a  commonwealth  for 
the  regulation  and  control  of  these  interests.  A  single  family 
left  to  itself  would  grow  into  a  clan  or  a  tribe,  in  which  the 
oldest  father  would  be  accepted  as  the  natural  ruler,  and  his 
descendants  subjected  to  him  as  the  head,  and  to  one  another 
in  various  gradations  of  subordination.  In  other  words,  by 
those  necessities  of  men's  nature  which  are  universally  ac- 
knowledged and  quickly  discerned,  there  come  to  be  accepted 
certain  relations  of  beneficent  authority  and  consequent  moral 
obligation,  which  are  first  fixed  by  custom,  and  then  sanctioned 
by  the  conscience. 


488  ELEMENTS  OF  MOBAL   SCIENCE.  [§  075. 

"We  do  not  need  to  follow  the  actual  or  imaginary  growth  of 
AnthoritT  ^^^^  State  through  its  several  stages  of  history  and 
naturally        development,  in  order  to  understand  its  necessity, 

discerned  .  .  . 

and  re-  OF  to   enforce  its  authority.      It   is  comparatively 

sponded  to.  unimportant  to  raise  the  question  whether  man  has 
ever  existed  out  of  the  state,  or  could  long  maintain  a  normal 
existence  apart  from  some  of  the  relations  which  an  organized 
commonwealth  involves.  It  is  enough  for  our  purposes  to  know 
that  the  state  is  one  of  the  natural  and  normal  conditions  of 
human  existence,  and  that,  so  soon  as  man  recognizes  his  re- 
lations to  his  fellow-men,  he  finds  himself  in  a  community.  So 
soon,  also,  as  he  attains  to  that  stage  of  reflection  which  quali- 
fies him  to  recognize  any  ethical  relations  between  himself  and 
his  fellow-men,  he  assents  to  the  truth  as  axiomatic  that  this 
community  of  men  should  be  organized.  If  he  finds  that  it  is 
organized  already,  he  accepts  its  institutions  and  its  officials,  as 
invested  with  authority  over  himself. 

When  we  speak  of  a  community  as  organized,  we  mean  that 
special  functions  are  assigned  to  certain  of  its  members,  for  the 
guidance  and  control  of  the  whole.  Prominent  among  these 
functions  are  the  origination,  the  interpretation,  and  the  en- 
forcement of  law.  The  officials,  or  organs  who  perform  these 
functions,  represent  and  act  in  the  place  of  the  entire  com- 
munity. They  do  not  in  any  sense  constitute  —  they  only 
represent  —  the  state,  which  is  supposed  already  to  exist.  The 
activity  and  interests  of  these  organs  are  not  personal.  They 
are  abused  and  perverted  when  they  are  regarded  as  such  by 
themselves  or  by  others.  Even  in  the  extremest  despotism, 
the  ethical  or  divine  right  by  which  the  unrestrained  monarch 
enforces  his  commands  or  sanctions  his  acts  of  cruelty,  rests  on 
the  assumption  that  he  holds  his  office  only  as  a  trust  for  the 
well-being  of  the  community  ;  and  never,  except  by  a  palpable 
abuse  of  this  trust,  that  he  holds  it  for  personal  interests. 
Never  was  a  more  offensive  falsehood  uttered  than  the  saying 
attributed  to  Louis  XIV.,  L*4taty  c'est  moi. 


§§276,277.]     THE  STATE:    ITS  NATURE,   ETC.  489 

§  276.  This  principle,  when  stated  in  another  form,  is  the 
familiar  doctrine  that  every  government  derives  its 

Derives  if^s 

authority  from  the  consent,  and  is  exercised  for  the  authority 
welfare,  of  the  governed.     Not  only  does  it  derive  ^^<""  ^o"'- 

nion  consent. 

its  authority,  but  it  is  sustamed  in  its  existence,  from 
this  source  alone.  We  do  not  ask  how  this  consent  is  obtained,  — 
whether  it  is  through  intimidation,  or  satisfaction.  It  is  enough 
that  it  is  actually  given.  Whether  the  government  stands  on 
the  cruelty  of  its  acts,  and  the  terror  which  these  acts  evoke,  or 
whether  it  is  sustained  by  the  thankful  affections  of  the  millions 
who  bless  its  administration  ;  whether  terror  palsies  every  effort 
for  a  change,  or  contentment  finds  no  place  for  the  desire  of 
change,  —  the  consent  of  the  governed  is  its  only  possible  or 
actual  basis  of  support.  In  this  sense  it  is  true  that  every 
government,  when  ethically  tested,  is  an  organism  through 
which  the  commonwealth  or  the  comniunity  performs  certain 
special  functions  which  are  essential  to  its  well-being. 

§  277.  As  to  what  these  functions  of  the  state  should  be, 
there  are  serious  diversities  of  opinion.     While  all  ^.,, 

^  Different 

agree  that  civil  government,  or  the  organized  state,  views  of  its 
exists  for  the  well-being  of  its  citizens,  and  for  this  ""*^**""^* 
only,  men  differ  widely  as  to  what  special  ends  should  be 
proposed  by  the  state,  and  what  means  should  be  employed  in 
order  to  attain  them.  Some  accept  a  very  wide,  others  a  very 
narrow,  sphere  for  its  aims  and  activities.  These  differences  of 
opinion  are  of  the  highest  significance  in  respect  to  political 
and  economical  conclusions,  although  of  less  importance  in 
determining  the  duties  of  men  to  the  state.  They  are  most 
important  for  rulers  and  legislators,  and  for  citizens  so  far  as 
they  choose  their  rulers  and  control  their  policy,  but  of  less 
significance  for  citizens  as  members  and  subjects  of  the  state. 
The  thorough  discussion  of  the  several  theories  of  the  state, 
and  the  limits  of  its  appropriate  functions,  is  essential  to  the 
mastery  of  political  and  social  science.  Such  inquiries  are  also 
not  unimportant  in  their  ethical  bearings,  especially  in  a  free 


490  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL   SCIENCE.  [§  278. 

government ;  inasmuch  as  an  intelligent  recognition  of  the  duties 
of  citizens,  and  of  the  spirit  in  which  these  duties  should  be 
performed,  must  depend  more  or  less  upon  correct  principles  in 
respect  to  the  aim  and  sphere  of  government.  Ethics,  how- 
ever, in  its  relations  to  the  state,  has  chiefly  to  do  with  the 
feelings  and  acts  which  duty  requires  of  a  man  with  respect  to 
the  government  under  which  he  finds  himself.  It  only  deals 
remotely  with  his  duty  to  attempt  to  correct  its  theory  in  the 
way  of  enlarging  or  limiting  its  sphere  of  activity.  The  duty 
of  men  to  reform  the  state,  by  bringing  it  back  to  its  legitimate 
functions,  is  often  important ;  but  it  is  by  no  means  so  signifi- 
cant nor  so  pressing  as  the  duties  of  men  under  the  state  to 
which  they  actually  belong.  A  state  may  be  imperfectly  organ- 
ized when  judged  by  a  scientific  ideal,  or  badly  administered 
through  the  incompetence  or  the  fault  of  its  officials,  while  yet 
the  most  important  duties  of  its  citizens,  and  even  of  its  offi- 
cers, remain  essentially  unchanged. 

The  theories  concerning  the  sphere  and  functions  of  the  state 
may  be  divided  into  three  classes  :  — 

§  278.  (1)  The  first  theory  limits  its  activities  to  tJie  security 
(1)  Theory  ^^^  defence  of  the  so-called  natural  rights  of  life, 
limits  it  to      liberty,  and  property.     Its  advocates  contend  that 

the  defence  .  -  i  ,  i      •        p  • 

of  three  nat-  the  state  exists  for  the  sole  and  exclusive  function 
urai  rights,  ^f  defending  these  three  inalienable  rights  of  man, 
and  for  this  function  alone ;  and  that,  so  soon  as  it  proposes  to 
itself  any  wider  sphere,  it  undertakes  functions  which  it  can 
neither  legitimately  propose,  nor  successfully  perform.  All 
that  the  individual  need  ask  is,  that  he  be  hindered  from  noth- 
ing and  aided  in  nothing  which  does  not  concern  these  cardinal 
interests,  if  only,  in  respect  to  his  other  interests  and  activities, 
he  is  left  to  his  own  activities,  or  the  voluntary  co-operation  of 
his  fellow-men.  This  theory  derives  plausibility  and  popularity 
from  the  unquestioned  fact  that  the  majority  of  governments 
have  assumed  a  greater  variety  of  functions  than  they  could 
successfully  fulfil.      They  have  often,  by  intermeddling,  bin- 


§278.]  THE  STATE:    ITS  NATURE,   ETC.  491 

dered  the  interests  which  they  aimed  to  help,  and  have  injured 
by  excess  the  very  causes  which  they  were  zealous  to  promote. 
By  a  not  unnatural  re-action,  their  critics  have  exalted  a  prac- 
tical criticism  of  administration  into  the  illegitimate  induction 
of  a  principle,  and  inferred  that  the  policy  of  non-interference 
on  the  part  of  the  government,  except  in  cases  in  which  these 
three  cardinal  rights  are  concerned,  is  to  be  regarded  as  an 
axiom  of  political  science. 

This  theory  is  demonstrated  to  be  false  by  proving  itself  to  be 
impracticable.  Every  government  which  would  con- 
fine itself  to  this  sphere  of  activity  must  define  its  because  im- 
conceptions  of  injuries  to  life,  liberty,  and  property,  P''*<'t»<^»*»*e- 
and  provide  by  statute  for  the  methods  of  proof  and  process 
whenever  these  interests  are  assailed.  It  must  also  assign 
penalties  for  the  violation  of  these  rights.  In  making  and 
executing  these  provisions,  it  must  have  in  view  the  effects  of  its 
measures  upon  the  welfare  of  the  community.  In  other  words, 
it  must  take  account  of  the  working  of  its  measures  upon  the 
temper  and  habits  of  the  community,  —  that  is,  upon  the  general 
welfare, —  as  truly  as  of  its  relation  to  the  three  great  interests  to 
which  it  is  supposed  to  be  limited.  It  is  doubtless  true,  that,  for 
the  well-being  of  man,  the  maintenance  of  these  three  cardinal 
rights  of  men  is  of  prime  importance ;  but  it  is  also  true,  that 
very  many  of  the  instrumentalities  and  methods  by  which  these 
rights  are  maintained  cannot,  be  disregarded  or  set  aside,  as  the 
proper  subjects-matter  of  civil  administration. 

In  point  of  fact,  so  limited  a  theory  of  state  administration 
has  never  been  put  in  practice,  and  is  not  likely  Has  never 
to  be.  There  are  other  interests  besides  the  three  •*««"  applied, 
great  rights  of  man,  which  every  government  finds  itself  com- 
pelled to  recognize ;  as,  public  decency,  the  public  health,  mar- 
riage and  the  family,  pauperism,  the  common  defence,  the 
public  wealth,  communication  by  roads,  rivers,  etc.  We  do  not 
add  education'  and  morality,  and  the  enlargement  of  the  re- 
sources of  the  country,  or  the  increase  of  its  manual  skill  or  its 


492  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL  SCIENCE.    [§§  279,  280. 

inventive  sagacity ;  for  it  is  questioned  by  some,  whether  gov- 
ernmental interference  can  possibly  further  or  benefit  these 
interests.  It  is  enough  that  we  show  that  there  are  other  inter- 
ests, besides  the  three  cardinal  rights  of  man,  which  the  state 
often  must  care  for  in  order  that  the  defence  and  security  of 
these  very  human  rights  may  bring  beneficial  results. 

§  279.  (2)  The  second  theory  allows  the  state  to  assume  for 

itself   the   direction   of   almost   every  interest  and 

the  paternal     activity  of  the  individual  citizen.    It  starts,  perhaps, 

and  despotic     ^^j^jj  ^^  abstract  theory  of  the  natural  supremacy 

theory.  -^  *  -^ 

of  the  state,  which  regards  the  individual  citizen  as 
existing  exclusively  or  supremely  for  its  well-being  and  glory. 
Or  it  adopts  the  paternal  theory,  which  teaches  that  the  state 
can  take  care  of  its  citizens  in  most  particulars  better  than  they 
can  care  for  themselves ;  and  consequently  assumes  to  direct 
many  of  the  details  of  their  family  and  social  life,  their  dress 
and  diet  and  health,  their  occupations,  their  domiciles,  and 
sometimes  their  personal  amusements.  It  superintends  the 
interests  of  education,  morality,  and  religion,  with  careful  and 
minute  supervision.  Such  a  government  when  administered  by 
an  irresponsible  police,  however  fair  \n  theory,  and  occasionally 
mild  and  benignant  in  administration,  is  usually  irritating  by  its 
constant  and  needless  intermeddling,  which  belittles  the  indi- 
vidual, and  cripples  private  enterprise  and  development.  For 
the  exigencies  of  a  great  military  power,  it  may  be  strong, 
eflScient,  and  useful ;  but  it  can  prove  eminently  successful  only 
when  its  citizens  have  been  trained  to  a  helpless  dependence 
upon  governmental  interference,  and  are  more  or  less  incapable 
of  caring  for  their  personal  interests. 

§  280.   (3)  Between  these  extremes  of  theory  and  practice, 
(S)  Th  different  governments  propose  to  themselves  wider 

intermediate    or  narrower  spheres  of  public  and  private  interests, 
according  to  the  traditions  of  the  past,  the  habits  of 
the  present,  and,  above  all,  according  to  the  intelligence,  the 
self-reliance,   and   the   moral  worth   of  the  people.     A  small 


§280.]  THE  STATE:    ITS  NATUBE,   ETC.  493 

state,  with  a  homogeneous  population,  animated  by  high  intelli- 
gence and  a  common  religious  faith,  might  not  only  accept,  but 
it  might  demand,  a  vigorous  governmental  action  in  respect  to 
trade,  commerce,  internal  development,  moral  restraints,  and 
religious  direction,  such  as  another  community  would  neither 
sanction  nor  tolerate.  One  community  would  welcome,  and 
even  require,  a  system  of  compulsory  education  which  would 
drive  another  into  revolution. 

It  follows  that  it  is  impossible,  in  the  strictest  sense  of  the 
term,  to  propound  or  vindicate  any  so-called  scientific  theory  of 
the  state  which  shall  mean  any  thing  more  than  that  a  certain 
policy  or  system  of  measures  is  likely  to  work  well  or  ill  on  a 
certain  subject-material,  or  under  certain  political  or  social  con- 
ditions. The  state  cannot  be  treated  as  a  philosophical  concept 
or  abstract  entity  with  certain  essential  constituents,  nor  as  a 
material  or  mental  substance  with  essential  properties,  which  it 
is  scientifically  or  morally  bound  to  exemplify  in  action  :  but  as 
a  community  of  living  beings,  with  varying  characteristics, 
which  is  organized  for  more  or  fewer  great  public  interests,  — 
more  or  fewer  according  to  the  culture  and  habits  of  the  people, 
—  prominent  among  which  are  the  security  and  defence  of  the 
rights  of  life,  liberty,  and  property.  Whether  its  government 
shall  care  for  other  interests  than  those,  and  what  these  interests 
shall  be,  must  be  determined  by  the  controlling  sentiment  of 
the  people. 

To  the  moralist,  the  question  is  one  of  special  practical  inter- 
est, whether  the  state  can  rightfully  legislate  with  Relation  of 
respect  to  the  education  and  moral  culture  of  the  the  state  to 

*  general 

community ;  and,  if  so,  by  what  principles  or  rules  and  moral 
shall  it  limit  or  regulate  its  procedure  ?  It  is  not 
enough  to  reply,  that  all  legislation  professedly,  and  much  of  it 
actually,  operates  for  the  moral  well-being  of  the  community ; 
inasmuch  as  social  order  and  the  security  of  natural  rights  are  the 
essential  conditions  of  moral  health  and  moral  progress.  The 
question  which  the  moralist  asks  is  this :  whether  the  state  may 


494  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL  SCIENCE.  [§  280. 

legislate  directly  for  the  culture  of  its  citizens  as  human  beings, 
in  order  to  improve  their  spiritual  quality,  as  by  education  and 
social  appliances  of  art,  amusement,  and  instruction  ;  especially, 
may  it  legislate  with  a  sole  and  direct  reference  to  their  moral 
elevation  or  reformation,  for  either  or  both  as  ends  in  them- 
selves? or  should  it  be  limited,  in  its  aims  and  its  appliances, 
to  the  increase  of  its  physical  and  economic  resources,  as  the 
indirect  but  certain  results  of  the  improvement  in  the  manhood 
of  its  population?  May  it  adopt  the  Athenian  theory,  that  the 
culture  of  its  population  is  itself  a  legitimate  object  of  its  legis- 
lation and  expenditure,  or  the  Spartan  theory  that  material 
strength  in  developed  humanity  and  conquered  nature  should 
be  its  only  appropriate  aim?  It  is  not  easy  to  answer  these 
Noteas  to  questions  by  any  definite  theory.  The  most  rigid 
formulate  a  rejecters  of  the  spiritual  and  ethical  theory  are 
*°*^^'  found  to   relax  more  or  less  in  its  application  in 

practical  administration,  while  the  administration  of  the  oppo- 
site theory  with  success  and  efficiency  is  not  always  easy.  To 
enforce  morality  by  laws  which  are  more  severe  than  the  public 
conscience  requires,  and  to  introduce  culture  and  education  of 
a  sort  which  the  public  taste  does  not  demand,  or  public  feeling 
does  not  desire,  or  which  is  higher  than  the  mass  of  the  people 
are  qualified  to  receive,  is  always  difficult,  and  often,  not  to  say 
usually,  becomes  annoying  and  odious.  All  will  agree,  how- 
The  state  cvcr,  that  the  state  not  only  may,  but  must,  legislate 
cannot  avoid    qq^  Qjjiy  for  the  punishment,  but  also  for  the  preven- 

educational         ...  „,  •  ^        ^ 

and  ethical  tiou,  of  crimc.  The  Community  also  knows,  that 
influences.  public  Order  cannot  be  preserved  so  long  as  a  lower 
stratum  is  becoming  ignorant  and  brutalized  from  one  generation 
to  another.  The  judgment  and  conscience,  even  of  a  debased 
and  demoralized  community,  respond  to  this  truth  ;  and,  for  this 
reason,  a  right  public  sentiment  will  usually  respond  to  any  wise 
and  reasonable  efforts  to  weaken  temptation  and  exposure,  aud 
to  counteract  evil  influences  by  appliances  for  good.  But  the 
state  cannot  assume  to  be  a  moral  censor  or  critic  in  respect  to 


§280.]  THE  STATE:    ITS  NATURE,   ETC.  495 

those  manners  or  amusements  which  do  not  offend  the  con- 
science or  the  taste  of  the  majority  of  the  community.  It  has 
no  advantage  for  conducting  the  aesthetic  or  ethical  culture  of  a 
coarse  and  immoral  population  :  consequently  every  attempt  to 
enact  or  enforce  laws  which  look  forward  to  a  future  reforma- 
tion of  manners  or  morals,  as  such,  must  necessarily  fail  or  be 
more  or  less  abortive.  All  that  the  government  can  do  is  to 
give  voice  and  expression  to  the  current  public  sentiment,  and 
clothe  it  with  organic  authority.  If  the  opinions  and  feelings 
of  the  community  do  not  sustain  and  enforce  the  laws  for 
culture  or  morality,  the  laws  themselves  will  be  brought  into 
more  or  less  of  contempt  and  dishonor,  and,  with  them,  the 
cause  in  whose  interests  they  are  enacted. 

Similarly  in  respect  to  education  and  culture.  The  state  not 
only  may,  but  must,  educate  its  citizens,  and  give  them  culture 
to  a  certain  degree,  if  it  would  increase  its  material  wealth  and 
enlarge  its  resources  by  their  intelligence  and  skill,  or  defend 
itself  against  the  dangers  to  which  brutal  ignorance  would  ex- 
pose it  from  without.  But  why  may  it  not  go  as  far  in  providing 
libraries,  in  opening  schools  of  art,  and  in  furnishing  amuse- 
ments, as  it  does  in  endowing  railways,  deepening  harbors, 
improving  rivers,  protecting  forests,  and  enforcing  quarantine  ? 
Practically,  we  answer  these  questions  thus :  So  far  practically, 
as  the  prevailing  sentiment  of  the  community  will  m«stbe 

regulated 

accept,  or  in  any  sense  believes  in,  the  salutary  op-  by  public 
eration  of  measures  like  these,  —  whether  in  its  intel-  sentiment. 
lectual,  or  moral,  or  aesthetic,  or  patriotic  convictions,  —  and  will 
enforce  such  legislation  by  efficient  sympathy,  so  far  is  it  wise  to 
employ  it,  but  no  farther.  But  the  state,  as  such,  cannot  often 
take  the  responsibility  of  anticipating  a  change  of  sentiment  as 
the  result  of  legislation.  Legislation  may  do  any  thing  which 
the  operation  of  time  and  actual  experiment  is  likely  to  justify, 
and  the  beneficent  consequences  of  which  can  be  clearly  fore- 
seen and  generally  assented  to.  But  its  appropriate  duty  is  not 
to  enforce,  by  law,  changes  in  opinion,  or  manners,  or  conduct, 


496  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL   SCIENCE:  [§281. 

which  do  not  already  approve  themselves  to  the  convictions  of 
those  whose  opinions  rule.  This  is  true  in  a  monarchical  or 
aristocratic  state,  but  pre-eminently  in  a  republic :  because,  in  a 
republic,  the  judgments  and  feelings  of  the  community  can  be 
more  easily  ascertained,  and  can  be  directly  and  energetically 
made  known  ;  in  other  words,  because  public  sentiment  acts 
immediately  and  surely,  to  further  or  to  embarrass  any  and  all 
legislation  for  general  and  remote  ends. 

^  §  281.  Leaving  this  question  of  the  proper  func- 

constitutes  tions  of  the  state,  we  proceed  to  define  Us  essential 
» state  "        conditions  or  characteristics. 

It  is  essential  that  the  state  should  occupy  a  definite  and 
Continuous  Continuous  landed  territory.  This  is  essential  for 
territory.  convenience,  if  the  authority  of  the  government  is 
to  be  respected,  and  its  benefits  are  to  affect  its  citizens.  In 
order  to  both,  the  citizens  must  be  readily  distinguished  and 
quickly  reached.  Two  political  communities  claiming  posses- 
sion of  a  common  soil  could  not  possibly  maintain  what  would 
deserve  to  be  called  a  national  existence  for  any  considerable 
time.  Two  or  more  tribes  of  Bedouin  Arabs  or  North-Ameri- 
can Indians  may  alternately  occupy  the  same  pasture  or  hunt- 
ing-grounds ;  but,  for  the  time  being  of  occupation,  each  must 
practically  treat  the  territory  which  it  occupies  as  exclusively 
its  own.  The  exigencies  of  civilized  life  require  the  continued 
occupation  and  control  of  an  entire  territory.  Some  of  the 
territory  adjacent  to  each  may  be  occupied  as  border-ground, 
—  as  a  so-called  march,  or  a  neighboring  ocean,  or  a  broad 
estuary  or  river ;  but,  for  all  this,  the  nation  or  any  political 
society  must  have  its  own  territorial  home,  all  of  which  must 
be  controlled  as  its  own.  Without  the  sole  and  exclusive 
occupation  of  continuous  territory,  separate  dwellings,  fixed 
employments,  and  permanent  neighbors  can  hardly  be  con- 
ceived of.  Except  on  this  condition,  agriculture,  village  and 
city  life,  and  an  advancing  civilization  would  be  well-nigh 
impossible. 


§282.]  THE  STATE:    ITS  NATURE,  ETC.  497 

These  obvious  facts  justify  the  rightfulness  of  repelling  any 
invasion  of  territory,  and  defence  from  every  form  Defence  of 
of  assault ;  inasmuch  as  every  citizen  is  in  some  *''^  ^^^^' 
sense  a  partner  in  this  common  domain.  If  he  is  justified  in 
contending  for  the  continued  existence  of  his  nation,  he  is  jus- 
tified in  repelling  an  invader  from  its  soil.  He  is  a  partner  in 
whatever  property  the  nation  has  in  the  common  soil.  He  is  not 
only  justified  in  assisting,  but  he  is  morally  obliged  to  assist,  his 
neighbor  in  the  occupancy  of  his  individual  share ;  and  both  are 
morally  obliged  to  aid  each  other  in  maintaining  this  first  con- 
dition of  national  well-being  in  the  control  of  the  soil  which  they 
own  in  common  as  fellow-citizens  of  their  common  country.  We 
do  not  assert  that  the  attitude  of  repellent  self-defence  is  to  be 
maintained  forever,  nor  that  a  surrender  of  territory  in  part  or 
whole  can  never  be  morally  right.  All  that  we  assert  is,  that 
the  defence  of  a  common  territory  is  a  necessity  and  a  duty,  if 
it  is  morally  lawful  to  assert  ownership  in  property  at  all.  This 
single  consideration  settles  the  question  of  the  lawfulness  of 
defensive  warfare,  in  the  minds  of  all  those  persons  who  believe 
in  the  right  to  defend  individual  property  from  violent  invasion 
of  any  kind.  This  common  territory  must  be  definitely  bounded. 
Unless  its  limits  are  definite,  it  cannot  exercise  efficient  and 
practical  control.  The  citizens  can  neither  know  one  another 
nor  know  their  rulers,  unless  the  limits  of  their  state  are  marked 
in  the  soil,  and  defined  by  relations  of  place ;  neither  ruler  nor 
subject  can  exercise  his  appropriate  functions.  For  the  same 
reasons,  the  territory  of  a  nation  must  be  continuous  on  the 
land.  A  small  insulated  territory  which  can  only  be  reached 
by  crossing  another's  soil  cannot  ordinarily  be  controlled  or 
benefited,  even  by  a  strong  nation,  if  it  be  severed  from  it  by 
another  intervening  country.  Nothing  but  a  strong  treaty  or 
an  intimate  alliance  between  the  nation  that  surrounds  it,  and 
the  nation  to  which  it  belongs,  can  connect  it  with  the  mother- 
country. 

§  282.  Next :  every  government  must  be  supreme  within  its 


498  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL   SCIENCE,  [§282. 

own  domain.  That  it  must  control  its  own  subjects,  is  obvious 
„    ^ ,  enough.     That   is   no  government  which  does  not 

Must  be  su-  °  ® 

prenieinits  govcm  its  citizcus.  The  principle  of  self-govern- 
own  domain.  ^^^^  ^^gg  ^^^  imply  that  law  is  not  supreme,  and 
that  whatever  the  organized  community  ordains  is  not  clothed 
with  unquestioned  authority.  A  self-governed  people  requires 
organization  as  truly  as  the  most  arbitrary  monarchy,  and  invests 
its  organs  as  truly  with  the  majesty  of  law.  However  limited 
be  the  authority  of  a  government,  or  however  rare  the  occasions 
on  which  it  meets  any  one  or  all  its  citizens,  so  far  as  it  meets 
or  governs  them  at  all,  it  meets  them  as  having  an  undisputed 
and  sovereign  authority.  Beyond  this  authority,  there  is  no 
earthly  appeal.  The  decisions  of  this  supreme  authority  must 
be  final.  Not  only  is  this  true  of  its  own  subjects  or  citizens, 
but  it  is  true  of  the  citizens  of  every  other  state  so  long  as 
they  reside  within  its  domain.  Exceptions  may  be  made  in 
favor  of  "the  stranger  within  the  gates;**  but  the  fact  that 
these  exceptions  are  made  shows  that  the  power  which  concedes 
might  withhold  them.  The  stranger,  by  the  act  of  coming  into 
a  state  which  is  not  his  own,  is  understood  as  asking  leave  to 
come,  under  conditions ;  which  conditions  are  rightfully  pre- 
scribed by  the  government  which  receives  him  as  a  guest. 
When  he  leaves  his  own  country,  he  cuts  himself  from  that 
protection  of  which  his  own  government  assures  him,  and  trusts 
himself  to  those  assurances  which  the  neighboring  sovereignty 
gives,  that  it  will  hospitably  protect  his  person  and  rights. 

An  apparent  exception  to  the  doctrine  of  exclusive  sovereignty  over 
the  same  territory  might  suggest  itself  in  the  case  of  the 
Apparent  government  of  the  United  States.     Let  it  he  granted,  says 

th^^^^U  it"d  "  *^^  objector,  that  the  National  or  Federal  Government  is  the 
States.  supreme  power  over  a  certain  territory,  say  of  a  single  State, 

in  respect  to  certain  functions:  it  follows,  that,  in  respect 
to  other  functions  of  local  administration,  the  State  is  also  supreme.  It 
follows  that  two  organized  commonwealths  are  supreme  within  the  limits  of 
the  same  territory,  as  the  National  and  State  Governments  within  the  ter- 
ritory of  Massachusetts  or  South  Carolina.  The  reply  seems  to  be  obvious; 
Were  neither  Massachusetts  nor  South  Carolina  liable  to  be  revised  and 


§282.]  THE  STATE:    ITS  NATURE,   ETC.  499 

judged  in  respect  to  the  exercise  of  its  functions,  should  either  venture  to 
assert  or  exercise  functions  which  the  States  have  surrendered  to  the  Fed- 
eral Government,  thereby  constituting  the  peoj^le  of  the  United  States  in 
some  particulars  supreme,  each  would  be  as  truly  a  sovereign  as  the  Nation. 
But  both  are  thus  liable  ;  and  an  organ  for  such  revisal  is  provided  in  the 
highest  court  of  the  Nation,  which  court  controls  the  executive  of  every 
State  and  every  other  organ  of  its  public  life  in  certain  particulars.  Wer§ 
the  Nation  liable  to  be  summoned  at  the  bar  of  each  State  to  answer  for  its 
usurpation  of  any  of  its  reserved  rights,  and  were  there  organs  provided 
for  such  a  trial  and  judgment,  then  each  State  might  be  equally  supreme 
or  sovereign  with  itself.  But  such  an  organ  is  not  provided.  Whether  or 
not  there  was  a  scientific  foresight  which  discerned  that  only  a  single  com- 
monwealth can  be  supreme  in  one  territory,  there  was  a  practical  sagacity 
which  excluded  the  incorporation  of  such  a  doctrine  in  the  framework  of 
the  government. 


It  follows  from  these  essential  attributes  of  domain  and  sove- 
reignty, that  the  state  is  justified  in  self-assertion 
and  self-defence.     The  fact  that  it  finds    itself   in   ^ay  defend 
existence  in  an  ororanized  and  independent  form,  is  ***  territory 

'^  ^  and  itself. 

prima-facie  evidence  that  it  is  worth  defendmg 
against  an  invader.  Nothing  except  force  can  secure  its  con- 
tinued existence  when  invaded  or  threatened.  If  it  is  the  duty 
or  right  of  a  community  to  maintain  its  existence  as  a  state,  it  is 
the  duty  of  its  citizens  to  defend  it  by  force.  The  maxim,  to 
resist  not  evil,  when  interpreted  to  imply  that  war  on  the  part 
of  a  state  is  immoral,  would  equally  require  that  evil  in  the 
form  of  robbery  or  murder  may  not  be  prevented  by  physical 
force  or  punishment. 

Whether  aggressive  war  is  ever  morally  justifiable,  or  a  war 
which  proposes  the  conquest  or  the  weakening  of  j^j^^^f^j^ggg 
another  state  for  the  commercial  or  precautionary  of  aggressive 
advantage  or  the  aggrandizement  of  the  attack- 
ing nation,  is  a  question  which  is  not  easily  answered.  We 
may  safely  affirm  that  the  majority  of  such  wars  cannot  be 
justified  by  the  moral  law.  We  need  not  deny  —  we  may  con- 
cede—  that  the  conquests  of  Greece  and  Rome  did  much  to 
spread  the  civilization  and  culture  which  made  the  diffusion  of 


500  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL   SCIENCE.  [§  282. 

ethical  and  Christian  morality  more  easy,  and  also  that  the 
conquests  of  Spain  and  England  have  opened  the  door  for  the 
proclamation  of  Christian  truth ;  and  yet  not  be  justified  in 
the  inference  that  many,  or  indeed  any,  of  these  wars,  were 
either  required  or  justified  by  the  law  of  duty.  Doubtless  force 
would  now  and  then  have  been  called  for,  and  invasion  by  land 
and  by  sea,  under  any  conditions  of  political  progress,  and  inde- 
pendent national  life ;  but  not  on  the  gigantic  scale,  and  with 
the  rapacious  and  self-seeking  spirit,  which  have  characterized 
the  majority  of  ancient  and  modern  wars. 

It  is  pre-eminently  true  of  national  life  and  national  acts, 
that  we  must  take  the  world  as  we  find  it.  While  the  actions 
and  attitude  of  every  country  ought  to  be  friendly,  and  mag- 
nanimous, and  peace-loving  in  the  extreme,  no  country  can  or 
ought  to  be  unmindful  of  the  fact,  that  its  neighbors  have  been 
schooled  in  the  traditions  of  invasion  and  conquest.  If  it  is 
morally  right  for  a  nation  to  defend  itself  when  invaded,  and 
to  preserve  by  resistance  its  own  national  life,  it  is  also  morally 
right  to  take  every  needed  precaution  against  such  violence, 
and  to  secure  our  own  integrity  and  peace  against  the  fear  of 
such  an  evil.  It  is  more  than  right :  it  is  a  present  and  con- 
stant duty. 

War,  however,  is  by  no  means   an   unmixed  evil,  if  it  be 

forced  upon  a  people  by  the  action  of  another 
unmixed         nation, — especially  if  this  action  be  unwarranted, 

—  or  if  it  be  hallowed  and  elevated  by  the  self- 
sacrifice  and  courage  which  war  stimulates  and  involves.  The 
highest  and  most  Christian  morality  has  not  unfrequently  been 
elevated  and  confirmed  in  those  wars  which  have  been  pros- 
ecuted in  the  service  of  one's  country,  especially  when  the 
cause  of  one's  country  has  also  been  the  cause  of  freedom  or 
religion  or  any  other  commanding  human  interest.  These  con- 
siderations all  indicate  and  prove  that  to  fight  for  one's  country 
may  not  only  be  morally  right,  but  not  infrequently  becomes 
morally  obligatory. 


§283.]  TUB  STATE:    ITS  NATURE,   ETC.  501 

§  283.  The  special  form  in  which  a  government  is  organized 
is  known  as  its  constitution.     This  constitution  may 

•^     The  con- 

not  be  formally  described  or  enacted  by  any  decree,  stitution 
or  described  and  assented  to  by  statute  or  instru-  ^^  *  ^***®' 
ment.  It  may  exist  only  as  a  collection  of  customs  which  are 
preserved  by  tradition  or  sanctioned  by  the  practice  of  other 
generations  ;  or  it  may  be  distinctly  enacted  and  written  as  the 
fundamental  law  of  the  land,  by  which  every  special  statute 
and  decree  must  be  tested,  and  may  be  tried  in  a  court  of 
last  resort.  Such  a  constitution  may  be  limited  to  the  accept- 
ance by  a  tribe  or  an  empire  of  the  supremacy  of  a  special  line 
of  hereditary  chiefs  or  emperors  ;  it  may  consist  of  a  series  of 
declaratory  acts,  or  a  line  of  judicial  decisions ;  it  may  be 
largely  only  a  collection  of  long-cherished  and  inherited  cus- 
toms ;  or  it  may  be  expanded  into  a  minute  and  carefully 
considered  written  document.  However  it  originates,  it  must 
be  practically  recognized  as  defining  the  government  in  fact, 
which  exists  by  the  consent  of  the  community,  and  consequently 
possesses  a  moral  authority  which  commands  the  allegiance  and 
binds  the  conscience  of  each  inhabitant  and  citizen. 


502  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL  SCIENCE.  [§284. 


CHAPTER  XV. 

LAW  AND  ITS  ENFORCEMENT. 

§  284.  Whatever  else  may  be  true  of  -me  state,  we  assume 
Must  enforce  ^^^^  ^^®  ^^  ^^®  most  prominent  functions  is  to  assure 
and  execute  to  its  citizeus  the  enjoyment  of  their  rights,  and  to 
defend  them  in  the  exercise  of  the  same.  It  is  pre- 
sumed, that,  so  far  as  individual  citizens  are  unmolested,  they 
will  assert  and  exercise  these  rights  under  the  impulses  of  na- 
ture. Left  to  themselves,  they  will  acquire  property,  defend 
tlieir  lives,  and  assert  their  personal  freedom.  So  soon  as  they 
are  molested  or  hindered  in  these  activities,  or  come  into  conflict 
with  one  another,  unless  their  neighbors  —  and  their  neighbors 
organized  as  the  state  —  shall  come  to  their  help,  they  will  use 
force  in  individual  self-defence.  What  a  man  may  rightfully 
do  for  himself  or  his  neighbors  may  do  for  him,  in  repelling 
the  invader  of  his  rights,  the  organized  state  may  certainly  per- 
form. It  follows,  that  one  of  the  most  important  functions  of 
the  state  is  to  defend  and  secure  these  natural  rights.  In  the 
view  of  some,  as  we  have  seen,  this  is  its  sole  function. 

It  is  because  it  is  known  or  feared  that  these  rights  will  be 
Necessity  interfered  with  or  denied,  that  the  aid  of  the  state  is 
of  force.  resorted  to  ;  indeed,  that  its  existence  becomes  a  ne- 
cessity, and  permanent  provisions  are  made  against  interference 
or  invasion.  Were  it  presumed  that  men  are  generally  con- 
trolled by  the  law  of  duty  and  of  love,  there  would  be  no  occa- 
sion for  any  action  of  the  state,  except  perhaps  to  instruct  the 


§285.]  LAW  AND  ITS  ENFORCEMENT.  503 

uninformed  in  what  they  do  not  know  concerning  the  causes  of 
evil  and  good  to  themselves  and  the  community.  Instruction 
and  caution  would,  in  such  a  case,  be  the  only  functions  which 
the  organized  state  would  need  to  exercise.  Experience  and 
the  pressure  of  fact  soon  teach  men  that  the  state  must  now 
and  then  go  farther,  and  use  organized  force  with  at  least  some 
of  its  members.  Whatever  indefiniteness  or  diversity  of  opin- 
ion may  exist  as  to  the  right  of  the  state  to  use  the  ^^^^ 
methods  of  moral  or  intellectual  instruction  and  en-  and  right  of 
lightenment,  there  is  almost  entire  unanimity  in  the  ^""^'*  ^^^  ' 
view  that  the  state  not  only  may,  but  must,  punish  those  who 
invade  the  natural  rights  of  its  members,  and,  in  view  of  the 
occasions  which  are  certain  to  arise,  must  make  arrangements 
to  do  so.  In  other  words,  while  the  state  assumes  as  a  truth 
that  certain  rights  are  assigned  to  man  in  the  economy  of  na- 
ture, as  the  conditions  of  his  normal  existence  and  his  true 
well-being,  it  assumes  as  a  fact  that  these  rights  must  be  de- 
fended and  secured  by  organized  force. 

Even  the  extremest  non-resistants  and  the  most  ultra  doctrinaires  do 
not  deny  that  a  man  who  turns  himself  into  a  beast  of  prey, 
carrying  murder  and  violence  into  every  house,  may  rightfully      on-*'es«t- 
be  chained  or  confined.    But  both  of  these  restraints  are  in    trinaires. 
some  sort  functions  or  forms  of  punishment.    They  certainly 
embody  all  the  elements  which  are  most  offensive  in  punishment.    It 
would  seem,  that,  when  the  intention  to  confine  and  restrain  is  declared 
beforehand  in  the  form  of  a  warning  or  preventive  announcement,  it  has 
all  the  characteristics  of  a  proclaimed  law  and  threatened  punishment  as 
essential  functions  of  organized  society.     The  state  has  a  right  thus  to  in- 
terpose itself  between  the  invader  of  the  natural  rights  of  its  citizens,  and 
to  hinder  him  from  perpetrating  the  evil  which  might  otherwise  ensue. 
Not  only  has  it  this  right,  but  it  is  its  duty  to  exercise  it.    For  this  end 
prominently,  if  not  primarily,  does  the  state  exist. 


§  285.  The  simplest,  and  ethically  conceived  the  lowest,  form 
of  punishment,  is  the  infliction  of  physical  pain  or 
inconvenience.     This  addresses  itself  to  man  in  the   of  punish- 
lowest  conditions  of  existence  and  through  the  low-  ™  "  * 
est  impulses  of  his  nature,  appealing  as  it  does  to  those  sensi- 


504  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL   SCIENCE.  [§  285. 

bilities  to  which  all  men  are  definitely  and  wakefully  alive,  and 
for  which  all  men  have  common  capacities  of  enjoyment  or 
suffering.  Viewed  apart  and  by  itself,  punishment  as  physical 
pain  or  inconvenience  takes  the  lowest  form  in  the  scale  of  dig- 
nity or  quality.  Strong  and  coarse  as  it  may  seem  as  an  opera- 
tive force,  yet,  considered  apart  from  the  other  forces  which  it 
suggests  and  the  other  sensibilities  to  which  it  appeals,  it  is 
weak  in  its  restraining  power,  even  with  men  who  seem  to  be 
wholly  animalized,  when  their  passions  of  greed  or  hate  are 
aroused. 

The  next  highest  element  or  form  of  punishment  is  the  felt 
The  next  displeasure  of  the  community^  which  is  supposed  to 
highest.  |jg  suggested  or  expressed  by  whatever  physical  evil 

is  threatened  and  inflicted.  When  the  handcuffs  are  for  the  first 
time  put  upon  the  convicted  thief,  or  the  doors  of  the  lock-up 
are  closed  upon  the  arrested  disturber  of  the  peace,  it  is  not  so 
much  the  restraint  or  personal  inconvenience,  or,  again,  the  dun- 
geon-walls and  the  iron  bars  or  the  bad  air  and  the  hard  fare 
of  the  prison,  that  either  feels  most  keenly,  as  it  is  the  fact  that 
he  is  reproached  and  dishonored  in  the  judgment  of  his  fellow- 
men,  and  that  they  condemn  and  disapprove  of  his  acts  and  of 
himself.  From  the  pain,  and  sometimes  the  agony,  which  he 
suffers  from  this  source,  he  seeks  to  find  relief  in  the  same 
direction.  The  principal  relief  that  he  can  find  is  in  the  fickle 
and  interested  sympathy  of  his  fellows  in  disgrace,  and  the 
feeble  attempts  which  he  makes  to  convince  himself  that  not 
only  his  fellow-prisoners,  but  all  men,  would  commit  the  same 
deeds  under  similar  circumstances;  i.  e.,  that  all  men  are  alike 
sensual  and  thievish  and  cruel.  He  may  attempt  to  affect 
insensibility  to  this  disapproval  which  he  feels  so  keenly, 
but  he  can  neither  deny  nor  disown  his  inmost  nature.  In 
fighting  against  the  contempt  or  disapproval  of  others,  he 
fights  against  himself,  his  own  convictions,  and  his  own  self- 
condemnation. 

We  do  not  discuss  the  question,  as  to  the  proportion  which 


§285.]  LAW  AND  ITS  ENFORCEMENT.  505 

this  element  of  punishment  bears  to  the  others  in  respect  to 
effectiveness.     It  is  enouojh  that  we  recognize  the 

The  ef  f  ective- 


j5^         V^^«  .TV.        XV.V.VQX 


truth,  that  the  effectiveness  of  punishment  as  a  ness  of  pun- 
restraining  and  preventive  force  depends  more  or  *'**^™®"** 
less  on  the  sensibility  of  man  to  that  displeasure  of  his  fellow- 
men  which  is  expressed  by  the  physical  evil  which  it  directly 
inflicts.  The  presence  of  this  element  dignifies  punishment, 
exalting  it  from  a  brute  agency  to  the  dignity  of  a  personal 
force,  and  connects  it  with  our  human  sympathies,  giving  it  a 
place  among  spiritual  relationships. 

Were  any  thing  more  required  to- en  force  this  truth,  it  would 
be  found  in  the  unquestioned  fact,  that,  when  punishment  fails 
of  being  sustained  by  the  sympathy  of  the  community,  it  loses 
much,  if  not  the  most,  of  its  preventive  force,  and  is  some- 
times even  sought  for  as  a  passport  to  popular  favor,  and 
gloried  in  as  a  condition  of  enviable  notoriety.  This  is  attested 
by  the  triumphant  spirit  in  which  the  martyrs  of  liberty  and  of 
faith  have  accepted  their  tortures  so  long  as  they  have  been 
sustained  by  the  sympathy  of  their  fellow-sufferers,  or  that  great 
unseen  company  of  those  whom  they  have  believed  were  with 
them  in  silent  approbation.  As  ordinarily  inflicted  and  received, 
the  punishments  of  the  law  carry  with  them  more  or  less  of  this 
implied  disapprobation  of  right-minded  men  ;  and  this  is  essen- 
tial to  their  dignity  and  personal  force.  It  is  because  the  com- 
monwealth of  my  fellow-men  are  supposed  to  consent  to  those 
who  put  on  the  handcuffs,  or  drive  home  the  prison-door,  or  pro- 
ceed to  take  my  life,  that  these  punishments  are  invested  with  their 
indefined  and  intolerable  terror  in  those  communities  which  are 
composed  of  men  who  can  reflect  enough  to  feel  it.  It  is  only 
as  our  fellow-men  are  recognized  as  forming  a  community  held 
together  by  bonds  of  social  sympathy  to  which  each  mdividual 
is  sensitively  responsive,  —  it  is  only  on  this  supposition,  that 
punishment  is  invested  with  its  higher  attributes,  and  that  the 
state  is  conceived  of  in  its  higher  relations  to  those  persons 
whom  it  protects  in  their  rights  by  an  appeal  to  that  common 


506  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL  SCIENCE.  [§  286. 

sympathy  which  fuses  them  for  the  moment  into  a  single  per- 
sonality. 

§  286.  Higher  and  still  more  effective  are  tJie  moral  relations 
of   punishment.     A  true  philosophy  of  man   must 

Moral 

relations  of  rccoguize  him  as  endowed  with  a  conscience,  and 
pun  s  men  .  thereby  as  rendered  susceptible  to  motives  that  are 
still  more  exalted  and  powerful,  even  in  his  relations  to  the 
state  and  the  penal  law. 

Indeed,  the  state,  should  it  desire  it  ever  so  earnestly,  could 
not  fail  to  use  these  ethical  relations,  and  the  affections  which 
they  involve.  First  of  all,  it  divides  offences  against  the  rights 
and  interests  of  its  citizens  into  two  classes,  the  civil  and  the 
criminal ;  and  uniformly  recognizes  in  the  last  the  moral  ele- 
ment of  intelligent  intention  and  voluntary  responsibility.  In 
criminal  cases,  whenever  it  punishes,  it  supposes  the  punish- 
ment to  be  justified  by  the  conscience  of  the  offender  and  the 
sympathy  of  all  right-minded  citizens;  i.e.,  of  all  citizens  who 
respect  their  own  moral  judgments,  and  enforce  them  by  their 
own  self-approval.  In  every  such  case,  the  punishment  is  not 
complete  until  this  last  element  is  brought  into  action,  and  the 
conscience  of  the  offender  passes  upon  him  with  his  own  self- 
condemning  sentence,  which  is  swiftly  followed  by  his  personal 
self-reproach.  The  punishment  of  the  state,  however  terrible  it 
may  be  in  every  other  respect,  is  never  armed  with  its  sharpest 
sting,  till  the  sufferer  becomes  alive  to  the  truth  that  the  evil 
which  he  suffers  not  only  expresses  the  disapprobation  of  his 
fellows,  but  that  they  justify  themselves  in  this  disapproval 
by  their  own  consciences.  In  other  words,  punishment  in  its 
higher  and  fully  developed  form  is  always  moral,  even  though 
the  offence  against  the  state  which  it  condemns  is  only  con- 
cerned with  civil  relations ;  for  the  reason  that  it  is  always 
inflicted  upon  moral  persons,  all  of  whose  actions  must  always 
have  a  moral  aspect,  and  come  under  the  law  of  duty.  We 
might  without  violence  suppose  the  same  matter  of  punishment 
as  to  physical  evil  to  be  used  with  beings  of  different  grades  of 


§287.]  LAW  ANB  ITS  ENFORCEMENT.  507 

capacity :  first,  with  animals,  and  these  endowed  with  different 
capacities  of  intelligence  and  feeling,  and  especially  with  differ- 
ing sensibilities  with  regard  to  the  favor  or  caresses  of  man ; 
next,  with  a  community  of  idiots,  or  imperfectly  developed 
men ;  next,  with  a  race  of  men  perfect  in  every  other  respect, 
if  such  could  be  supposed,  only  destitute  of  moral  personality. 
Should  the  same  commands  be  given  to  each  of  these  beings, 
and  be  enforced  by  the  same  physical  sanctions,  how  much 
more  would  they  signify  to  the  one  class  than  to  the  other ! 

It  might  still  be  objected,  as  it  often  is,  that  the  state  concerns  itself 
with  the  actions  only,  witljout  concerning  itself  with  the    ,j,.       .  . 
purposes  or  intentions.    It  is  sufficient  to  reply,  that  in  crim-    must  con- 
inal   cases  it  always  considers  the  purposes  and  feelings,    sider  the 
receiving  testimony  and  employing  tests  solely  to  prove  or    intentions, 
disprove  their  sanity  and  responsibility.    It  were  more  exact  to  say  that  it 
always  presumes  an  intention  and  moral  purpose,  and  contents  itself  with 
the  rational  interpretation  or  construction  of  the  intentions,  as  indicated 
by  the  actions.    It  does  not  profess  to  read  the  conscious  purposes,  or  to 
inspect  the  inner  man,  but  uses  the  actions  as  criteria  by  which  to  judge 
the  feelings  and  purposes.    By  means  of  the  same,  also,  it  measures  the 
grades  of  crime,  as  between  theft  and  burglary;  the  degree  of  criminal 
intention  in  the  two  acts  of  crime  being  interpreted  by  the  nature  of  the 
external  action. 

From  all  these  considerations  we  may  safely  conclude,  that, 
in  the  infliction  of  punishment,  the  state  always  sup- 

.  Conclusion. 

poses  itself  to  have  to  do  with  moral  persons,  and 
recognizes  moral  relations  as  the  most  efficient  of  motives  and 
the  most  authoritative  of  sanctions.  It  assumes,  even  when  it 
does  not  affirm,  that  God  and  the  conscience  are  on  its  side ; 
and  it  provides  for  its  grades  of  punishment  on  the  theory  that 
the  conscience  of  the  convicted  criminal  will  justify  its  milder 
or  severer  sentences  to  evil,  and  that  the  consciences  of  the 
community  of  moral  beings  will  conspire  with  the  same. 

§  287.  We  also  conclude  that  the  state  not  only  has  the  right, 
but  is  morally  bound,  to  punish  the  invader  of  the   i,i„,its  ©f 
rights  of  its  citizens,  or  the  assailant   of   its   own   ?""«>«'«•»«"*• 
existence.     But  how  far  may  it  proceed  in  such  punishment? 


508  ELEMENTS  OF  MOBAL  SCIENCE.  [§  287. 

What  extreme  of  evil  may  it  inflict  upon  the  aggressor  upon  the 
life  and  liberty  and  property  of  its  citizens  ?  We  reply :  Any 
extreme  which  is  necessary  for  the  defence  of  these  rights,  and 
for  the  defence  of  itself.  The  rights  in  question  must  he 
secured  to  the  community,  at  any  cost  of  evil  to  the  man  who 
deliberately  and  persistently  invades  them.  He  shows  himself 
by  his  acts  to  be  an  enemy  of  the  public  welfare,  and  such 
deeds  must  be  prevented  by  the  fear  of  any  form  of  evil  which 
the  invader  can  suffer. 

It  follows  that  punishment  may  be  capital  whenever  and  as 
It  may  be  ^^r  as  it  Can  be  shown  that  such  punishments  are 
capital  when?  ^^q  j^gg^  fitted  to  prevent  the  crimes  in  question. 
It  does  not  follow  that  they  must  be  capital,  even  for  the 
taking  of  life ;  but  only  that  the  state  is  justified  in  inflicting 
such  punishments  whenever  it  can  be  shown  that  they  are  best 
fitted  to  effect  the  object.  If  a  man  as  an  individual  may  de- 
fend his  life,  his  liberty,  or  his  property,  by  taking  the  life  of 
the  assailant,  then  surely  the  state  may  threaten  to  do  the  same, 
and  may  execute  its  threat.  It  does  not  follow  that  it  is  right 
to  do  the  same,  unless  this  necessity  exists :  on  the  contrary, 
the  right  to  inflict  such  punishment  may  be  so  exercised  as  in 
a  great  degree  to  defeat  the  general  ends  of  punishment,  and  to 
weaken  the  moral  force  of  the  government  itself.  The  freedom 
and  recklessness  with  which  capital  punishment  was  inflicted  for 
petty  thefts  a  few  generations  since,  under  the  English  law,  are 
horrible  to  think  of ;  not  because  it  is  not  right  for  a  man  to 
defend  his  property  by  shooting  a  burglar  in  extreme  necessity, 
or  for  the  government  to  do  the  same  under  the  stress  of  mar- 
tial law,  but  because  the  multiplication  of  extreme  punishments 
for  minor  crimes  tends  to  accustom  the  community  to  regard 
all  crimes  as  equally  evil,  and  practically  to  esteem  murder  as 
jio  worse  than  theft,  as  when  a  man  or  cliild  is  hung  for  both. 
In  other  words,  brutality  in  any  form  tends  to  weaken  the 
moral  element  in  the  administration  of  punishment. 

This  is  only  one  of  the  many  proofs,  that,  while  the  imme- 


§288.]  LAW  AND  ITS  ENFORCEMENT.  509 

diate  design  of  punishment  is  to  prevent  the  repetition  of  a 
particular  crime,  it  also  proposes  other  ends,  — 
ends  wliich  are  closely  and  inevitably  connected  with  ends  of 
what  is  technically  distinguished  as  punishment  »"»*«»»">«»»*• 
proper.  These  secondary  ends  are  twofold,  —  the  reformation 
of  the  criminal,  and  the  moral  education  of  the  community  in 
such  a  way  as  to  avoid  the  necessity  of  punishment.  Both 
these  effects  are,  indeed,  necessarily  incidental  to  punishment 
proper.  The  fact  that  alt  civilized  governments  regard  them  in 
their  penal  arrangements  is  also  decisive  that  they  assume  the 
right  and  acknowledge  the  duty  to  care  for  the  moral  welfare  of 
the  community,  and  propose  a  wider  sphere  of  responsibility  than 
its  concern  for  the  so-called  natural  rights  to  property,  liberty, 
and  life  (§  278).  Whatever  the  theories  of  political  philoso- 
phers may  be,  and  however  rigid  and  logical  their  so-called 
scientific  doctrines  of  the  sphere  and  functions  of  the  state, 
practical  legislators  and  actual  courts  of  law  can  never  be 
unmindful  that  the  citizens  who  constitute  the  state  draw  the 
breath  of  their  life  in  an  atmosphere  of  ethical  convictions  and 
sentiment ;  that  they  at  once  invigorate  the  force  of  law  by 
their  allegiance  to  duty,  and  temper  its  severity  by  the  softening 
and  pitying  element  of  human  sympathy. 

The  modern  theories  and  practice  of  prison  discipline  are 
also  indications  and  proof  that  civil  governments 

^  ='  Modern 

recognize  other  obligations  than  those  of  punish-  theories  of 
ment  in  dealing  with  offenders.  These  uniformly  P""*^^™*"*- 
combine  arrangements  for  recovery  and  reform  with  the  repel- 
lent and  menacing  apparatus  for  punishment ;  and,  in  so  doing, 
they  recognize  a  certain  duty  of  moral  culture  and  recovery  as 
essential  to  the  well-being  of  the  state,  and  the  community  for 
which  the  state  exists. 

§  288.    This   suggests   the  question  whether  the  nessand 
government  may  ever  remit  a  threatened  penalty ;   propriety 
or.  Can  strict  justice  ever  allow  the  state  to  pardon? 
This  question  involves  inquiries  still  more  minute;   e.g..  Does 


610  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL  SCIENCE.  [§  289. 

not  justice,  as  such,  demand  that  the  threatened  punishment 
should  be  invariably  inflicted,  unless  evidence  of  some  sort 
be  furnished  that  the  offence  was  less  serious  than  was  origin- 
ally supposed  when  sentence  was  pronounced?  Such  evidence 
might  be  found  in  some  new  light  in  respect  to  the  actual 
moral  unworthiness  of  the  criminal,  difficult  as  it  might  be  to 
employ  such  a  test. 

The  advocate  of  what  is  called  a  natural  sense  of  justice,  as 
an  original  intuition  or  sentiment,  can  find  no  place  for  pardon 
as  such,  under  any  supposable  circumstances.  In  his  theory, 
justice  is  a  supreme  and  sacred  authority,  which  must  have 
its  pound  of  flesh  to  the  minutest  fibre,  and  from  whose  sum- 
mary decision  there  can  be  no  appeal.  Though  it  may  pity, 
it  can  never  relent ;  though  it  may  love,  it  can  never  remit  the 
penalty.  If  this  be  true  of  penal  justice  as  administered  by 
man,  much  more,  it  is  rightly  reasoned,  must  it  be  true  of 
divine  justice,  which  surely  cannot  remit  the  threatened  penalty, 
nor  tenninate  it,  until  it  shall  have  been  fully  suffered  or  entirely 
paid. 

§  289.  These  difficulties  both  speculative  and  practical,  in 
.,  ^   the  ethical  sphere  both  human  and  divine,  are  set 

Theory  which  ^ 

adjusts  the  aside  or  avoided  by  a  theory  of  penal  justice  which 
conceives  of  it  as  a  form  or  manifestation  of  moral 
benevolence,  which  is  called  justice  because  impersonal  equity 
is  one  of  its  chief  characteristics,  and  because  its  love  for 
moral  goodness  is  so  energetic  and  intense  as  to  manifest  in 
ways  of  penalty  the  displeasure  which  it  cannot  but  feel  against 
evil  affections  and  evil  deeds  and  evil  men,  and  which  conse- 
quently must  sympathize  with  the  enforcement  of  law  and  the 
infliction  of  penalty  in  the  state  and  the  moral  universe.  Such 
moral  love,  though  it  be  called  justice,  may  also  desire  to 
reclaim  and  recover  to  that  moral  health  which  is  shown  in 
repentance  as  manifested  in  acts  of  duty.  If  now  this  recover- 
ing pity  reclaims  and  pardons  at  the  same  time  that  it  leaves 
unquestioned  its  just  and  energetic  displeasure  towards  moral 


§289.]  LAW  AND  ITS  ENFORCEMENT.  511 

evil,  it  is  as  just  to  pardon,  in  the  largest  sense  of  justice,  as 
it  is  to  inflict  the  threatened  penalty.  It  may  be  questioned 
whether  this  higher  ideal  of  justice  can  often  be  safely  applied 
under  the  limitations  of  the  human  state,  which  must  concern 
itself  chiefly  with  external  conduct,  and  can  only  indirectly 
and  imperfectly  deal  with  the  inner  life.  But  we  cannot  doubt 
that  it  controls  that  spiritual  kingdom  in  which  moral  relations 
are  supreme,  and  the  hearts  of  all  are  judged  by  the  discerning 
yet  pitying  eye  of  the  living  God.  We  need  not  vex  ourselves 
with  the  vexed  questions  of  theological  polemics  to  be  assured 
that  Christianity,  either  by  symbol  or  fact,  —  or,  as  we  believe, 
by  the  most  significant  of  symbols  and  the  most  real  of  facts,  — 
has  sanctioned  the  theory  of  moral  administration  in  which  the 
sacredness  of  penal  justice  and  the  recovery  of  the  offender  are 
recognized,  sought  for,  and  achieved. 


512  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL  SCIENCE.     [§§  290,  291. 


CHAPTER  XVI. 

DUTIES   TO   THE   STATE,  CIVIL   AND   POLITICAL. 

§  290.  The  obligation  to  recognize  civil  government  has 
Duties  of  already  been  explained  as  comprehended  in  and 
the  citizen,  enforced  by  the  law  of  love.  All  our  duties  as  citi- 
zens of  the  state  spring  from  and  are  included  in  the  general 
obligation  to  promote  the  highest  well-being  of  our 
obligation  of  fellow-men.  Those  relations  of  men  to  one  another 
which  we  call  civil,  are  essential  to  their  well-l)eing. 
Every  man  recognizes  them  as  such ;  and  hence  every  man 
recognizes  the  duty  to  respect  these  as  actual,  and  as  invested 
with  their  legitimate  importance  and  authority. 

The  leading  duties  which  man  owes  to  civil  government  are 
Two  classes  divided  into  two  classes,  —  his  duties  as  a  subject, 
of  duties.  and  his  duties  as  an  administrator  of  the  govern- 
ment. Sometimes  these  are  distinguished  as  civil  and  x>olitical^ 
according  as  a  man  is  regarded  as  a  citizen  of  the  common- 
wealth and  under  its  authority,  or  as  a  member  of  its  polity, 
or  its  governing  class.  This  distinction  is  of  special  signifi- 
cance, particularly  in  its  application  to  a  republican  form  of 
government. 

Of  ciTii  ^G  begin  with  the  duties  of  the  citizen  as  thus 

duties.  defined,  and  first  with  his  civil  duties. 

§  291.  (1)  It  is  the  duty  of  every  man  to  recognize  the 
authority  of  the  government  which  prevails  in  the  country  in 
which  he  finds  himself,  whether  a  constant  resident  or  a  tem- 
porary sojourner.     A  person  may  have  been  a  resident  in  the 


§292.]  DUTIES   TO   THE  STATE.  513 

United  States  or  Great  Britain  from  his  birth,  or  a  lodger  in 
either  for  a  night.    In  either  case,  it  is  his  duty,  and 
equally  his  duty,  to  respect  the  government  of  the  nj^e  the*^**^' 
country  in  which  he  is  present.    As  has  already  been  authority  of 

the  state. 

explained,  civil  government,  to  fulfil  its  mission  of 
blessings,  must  be  supreme  or  sovereign  within  its  territory. 
It  is  every  man's  duty  to  further  or  promote  this  service  of  good. 
It  makes  no  difference,  so  far  as  this  special  obligation  is  con- 
cerned, whether  he  is  a  citizen  or  a  stranger.  The  deliberate 
or  careless  enemy  or  antagonist  of  the  government  which  con- 
trols the  soil  on  which  he  is  a  guest  is  an  enemy  of  mankind. 

The  doctrine  has  indeed  found  a  few  advocates,  that  a  man 
miojht  disown  all  allegiance  even  to  the  government  „.  ,  , 

^  *=  "  Mistaken  and 

of  his  country,  on  giving  due  notice  that  he  would  fanatical 
assert  no  claims  for  its  protection.  Not  a  few  ideal- 
ists with  lofty  moral  pretensions  have  claimed  in  this  way  to 
escape  their  seeming  personal  responsibility  for  the  acts  of 
a  bad  government,  by  professing  to  refuse  to  accept  any  favors 
at  its  hands.  They  did  not  reflect  that  it  is  as  impossible  to 
escape  from  the  benefits  as  it  is  from  the  responsibilities  of 
the  government  of  a  country  in  which  we  live.  Those  idealists 
who  have  dreamed  of  founding  a  pure  society,  in  which  govern- 
ment and  authority  should  be  resolved  into  the  consenting  con- 
sciences of  its  members,  and  would  thus  fulfil  their  dainty  and 
impracticable  ideals,  have  never  succeeded  in  dispensing  alto- 
gether with  authority  for  the  restraint  of  the  conscience  from 
acts  which  otherwise  would  not  have  been  prevented,  nor  with 
physical  force  for  the  repression  of  those  brutal  impulses  which 
now  and  then  are  certain  to  assert  themselves. 

§  292.   (2)  It  is  the  duty  of  every  man  to  possess  and  cherish 
those  feelings  of  special  interest  in  his  own  country 

^  ^  *;    (2)  To  cherish 

which  are  the  natural  and  necessary  consequences  of   special 
moral  love  to  his  kind.    It  has  been  abundantly  illus-  pat"«*^« 

''  feelings. 

trated,  that  the  lover  of  his  fellow-men  in  general 

will  cherish  and  obey,  and  thus  cultivate  and  strengthen,  the 


514  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL  SCIENCE.  [§  293. 

special  emotions  which  he  feels  towards  those  who  are  neighlx)r3 
to  him  in  residence,  and  who  are  familiar  and  dear  to  him  by 
being  fellow-laborers  in  good  works,  and  receivers  of  common 
benefits ;  who  share  in  giving  and  receiving  gratitude,  confi- 
dence, sympathy,  pity  ;  who  are  with  him  in  his  fears  and  hopes, 
in  his  labors  and  sacrifices.  Inasmuch  as  generous  love  to  our 
fellow-men  is  a  universal  duty,  and  these  consequences  of  its 
presence  and  exercise  are  its  abundant  and  grateful  fruits, 
patriotic  feeling  is  also  of  universal  obligation.  Moreover,  as 
these  special  affections  should  be  cultivated  by  definite  acts 
and  sacrifices,  so  patriotism  becomes  a  duty,  and  should  be 
conscientiously  cherished  as  an  affection  which  is  at  once  the 
natural  expression  and  rational  consequence  of  a  benevolent 
will. 

§  293.  (3)  It  is  the  duty  of  the  subject  to  contribute  to  the 
(3)  To  pay  Support  of  the  government  to  the  extent  and  in 
taxes.  ^i^g  measure  which  the  law  requires.    No  government 

can  exist  without  the  pecuniary  contributions  of  its  subjects. 
By  the  nature  of  the  case,  the  governing  organs  must  prescribe 
the  amount  which  is  required,  and  compel  the  payment  of  it. 
A  government  is  no  government  which  does  not  claim  and  exer- 
cise the  authority  to  exact  from  its  subjects  the  taxes  which  it 
prescribes.  The  citizen  who  does  not  respond  to  this  claim  by 
complying  with  its  requisitions  fails  in  his  duty,  and  offends 
against  the  moral  law.  The  tax  may  be  unreasonable  and 
disproportionate,  and  ruinous  to  both  government  and  citizen  ; 
and  yet  if  it  is  ordered  it  must  be  paid,  for  the  simple  reason 
that  it  is  the  function  of  the  government  to  decide  questions  of 
this  sort,  and  the  duty  of  the  subject  to  accept  its  decision 
when  it  is  final.  It  need  not  be  said  that  it  may  not  only  be  the 
right,  but  it  may  be  the  duty,  of  the  citizen  to  reason  and 
remonstrate  with  the  government,  or  to  seek  a  change  in  its 
decisions  by  all  lawful  means ;  but  after  the  decision  is  made,  it 
is  equally  his  duty  to  obey,  whether  the  tax  be  equitable  or 
oppressive. 


§§  294,  295.]  DUTIES   TO   THE  STATE.  515 

§  294.    (4)   Similarly,  it  is  the  duty  of  the  citizen  to  support 
and  defend  his  government,  and  at  times  even  at  the 
risk  and  sacrifice  of  his  life.     A  government  cannot  p^rt  and 
exist  without  being  now  and  then  assailed,  either  in  ^^^^^^  the 

government. 

the  person  of  some  of  its  officers,  or  by  an  armed 
force  which  avowedly  seeks  to  rob  or  humble  or  subjugate  it. 
Its  only  remedy  in  such  cases  is  force,  and  the  use  of  force  as 
against  force  involves  the  exposure  of  the  life.  We  do  not  say 
that  it  is  the  duty  of  every  citizen  to  hazard  his  life  in  such  a 
need,  but  simply  that  this  is  the  duty  of  some  of  its  citizens ; 
for  without  such  exposure  or  sacrifice  the  government  must  be 
weakened  or  destroyed,  and  a  government  which  cannot  with- 
stand invaders  from  without  or  sedition  from  within  cannot 
long  continue  to  exist.  Impotence  to  repel  force  by  force  is 
but  another  term  for  anarchy.  It  is  with  this  duty,  as  it  is 
with  the  duty  to  pay  one's  taxes :  the  government  itself  must 
determine  who  and  in  what  way  each  individual  shall  discharge 
his  obligations,  but  when  its  decisions  are  reached  they  should 
be  implicitly  obeyed. 

§  295.    (5)  This  leads  us  to  the  comprehensive  principle  that 
in  general  every  requirement  of  the  government  must 
be  obeyed,  with  two  or  three  important  qualifications  every  law, 
and  exceptions.     That  the  principle  in  general  is  w*th  certain 

•  ^  exceptions. 

true,  is  evident  from  the  considerations  already  ad- 
duced.    The  supposed  or  alleged  exceptions  will  serve  to  limit 
the  rule  on  the  one  hand,  and  to  confirm  it  on  the  other. 

(a)  The  laws  enacted  and  enforced  may  be  clearly  unwise 
and  even  mischievous.     It  is  very  unfortunate  that   ,  ,  ^ 

-^  (a)  Suppose 

this  should  ever  be  true.  Civil  government  exists  the  law  is 
for  the  welfare  of  the  community.  Every  provision 
and  statute  which  is  made  purports  to  be  for  the  well-being  of 
the  people.  But  lawmakers  are  not  always  honest  or  wise : 
they  not  un frequently  fail  to  be  fully  informed,  or  to  judgq 
wisely  and  justly  as  to  what  the  public  interest  is  or  requires. 
Even  when  they  are  not  fully  informed,  or  fail  to  decide  rightly, 


516  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL   SCIENCE.  [§  296. 

they  are  not  always  honest  in  following  their  judgments.  And 
yet  it  is  implied,  in  the  very  nature  of  civil  government,  that 
whatever  is  enacted  or  ordered  as  a  rule  by  the  organic  power 
should  be  invested  with  moral  authority,  however  unwise  or  in- 
jurious it  may  be.  Its  unwisdom  and  its  evil  influences  do  not 
in  the  least  release  the  conscience  of  the  subject  from  obeying 
its  orders  and  complying  with  its  exactions.  Unless  this  is 
true,  civil  government  is  impossible.  Its  very  essence  consists 
in  the  authority  of  the  organs  of  the  state  to  decide  as  to  what 
is  to  be  done  and  avoided  by  the  subjects  of  the  state.  The 
fact  that  the  people  choose  their  lawmakers,  even  if  every  in- 
dividual were  supposed  to  take  part  in  the  election,  does  not  in 
the  least  weaken  the  authority  of  the  laws  which  they  make, 
however  weak  or  immoral  may  be  the  motives  by  which,  when 
chosen,  they  are  controlled,  or  however  unwise  may  be  the  laws 
which  they  make.  The  experience  of  every  generation  confirms 
the  truth  which  dictated  the  remark  of  Chancellor  Oxenstiern, 
'^  Nescis,  mi  Jili^  quantilld  prudentid  homines  regantur;**  but 
the  same  experience  also  confirms  the  truth  that  law,  when  en- 
acted by  the  existing  authorities,  must  be  respected  as  supreme 
and  decisive.  The  evil  consequences  may  be  obvious  to  all 
competent  observers,  and  bring  speedy  disa^er  and  dishonor  to 
the  country ;  and  yet  the  laws  must  rule  the  conscience,  and 
demand  obedience. 

§  296.   (&)  The  laws  may  not  only  be  unwise  and  even  mis- 

chievous :  they  may  be  demoralizing,  and  in  that 
the  law  is        scnsc  offensive   to   the   conscience.      Examples   of 

such  laws  are  those  which  tempt  men  to  dishonesty 
or  crime  by  unwise  and  excessive  taxation,  by  furnishing  facili- 
ties and  opportunities  for  theft,  by  stimulating  the  vicious  or 
sensual  appetites,  by  unskilful  criminal  jurisprudence,  and  by 
defective  arrangements  for  marriage  and  divorce.  Obedience 
to  the  laws  supposed  does  not  necessarily  involve  an  immoral 
act  on  the  part  of  the  citizen  or  subject,  though  the  indirect 
operation  and  influence  of  the  law  may  be  morally  hurtful,  inas- 


§297.]  DUTIES  TO   THE  STATE.  517 

much  as  such  laws,  though  demoralizing,  do  not  involve  per- 
sonal immorality  in  every  citizen.  Consequently  they  must  be 
obeyed,  for  the  reason  that  the  government  has  enacted  them ; 
and  for  this  reason  they  bind  the  conscience. 

These  evil  consequences  may  be  freely  discussed,  in  case  the 
government  does  not  forbid  ;  their  demoralizing  tendencies  may 
be  portrayed  and  exposed  :  but,  whenever  the  law  as  such  meets 
the  citizen,  he  must  obey  it  because  it  is  the  law. 

§  297.   (c)  The  laws  may  require  immoral  acts,  —  acts  which 
contradict  any  one  of  the  plain  commands  of  con- 
science.    Obviously,  such  supposed  commands  must  it  requh-es 
respect  the  external  actions  only.     They  may  forbid  immoral 

actions. 

acts  of  plain  duty,  or  command  immoral  deeds.  The 
feelings  and  purposes  cannot  be  reached  by  human  legislation. 
It  is  obvious  that  such  laws  should  be  disobeyed.  The  judg- 
ment of  conscience  is  supreme.  It  is  in  the  name  of  the  moral 
law,  and  only  by  its  authority,  that  allegiance  is  required  to  any 
civil  law.  When  such  a  law  usurps  the  place  of  the  moral  law 
on  which  it  stands,  it  has  no  authority  to  which  it  can  appeal. 
The  same  authority  which  in  the  one  case  commands  obedience, 
in  the  other  commands  the  opposite.  Cases  of  this  kind  are 
not  likely  often  to  occur ;  but,  whenever  they  do  occur,  they 
admit  of  but  one  solution,  —  a  law  to  commit  an  immoral  act 
can  never  bind  the  conscience.  It  is  not  unfrequently  true  that 
acts  which  are  judged  to  be  immoral  by  some  men  are  not  so 
in  fact.  Acts  which  would  be  immoral  were  they  not  required 
by  law  may  also  cease  to  be  so  when  the  law  enjoins  them. 
It  is  not  always  easy  to  determine  whether  an  act  is  im- 
moral, especially  if  it  is  enjoined  by  civil  government ;  but 
it  is  clear,  that,  so  soon  as  it  is  thus  judged,  the  command 
to  perform  —  or,  as  the  case  may  be,  to  avoid  —  the  act  in 
question  has  no  moral  authority.  It  will  be  observed  that  the 
cases  adduced  are  hypothetical  only.  The  question  is  not 
raised,  whether,  in  a  constitutional  government,  such  a  case 
can  ever  arise. 


618  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL  SCIENCE.     [§§  298,  299. 

§  298.   (d)  The  laws  may  require  or  forbid  actions  which  are 

forbidden  or  required  by  God.    In  case  of  a  positive 

It  coniniands    Command  of  God,  or  any  requirement  which  such 

disobedience    ^  command  involves,  the  moral  authority  of  God  is 
to  God.  -^ 

supreme.     The  law  of  the  state  has,  in  every  such 

case,  no  authority  over  the  conscience.     ''  We  ought  to  obey 

God,  rather  than  men." 

Men  may  mistake  as  to  what  God  does  actually  command. 
They  may  infer  that  God  commands  an  act  which  he  would 
forbid,  or  which  is  entirely  indifferent.  There  is  ample  room 
for  mistakes  and  inferences  of  this  sort.  The  principle  remains 
true  and  important,  notwithstanding,  however  serious  are  the 
mistakes  of  man  in  respect  to  questions  of  this  sort,  or  disas- 
trous the  consequences  which  follow  in  fanaticism  and  civil 
disorder. 

§  299.    (e)  The  laws  may  be  unconstitutional  and  tyrannical. 

In  other  words,  they  may  be  the  result  of  usurpa- 

theiawis        Hou^  in  respect  to  form  or  administration.     Such 

mieoiisti-        lay^s  ov  acts  may  be  disobeyed  or  resisted  for  the 

tutional.  -^  -^ 

purpose  of  testing  their  legality  at  the  proper  tribu- 
nals. They  may  even  be  resisted  in  order  to  call  the  attention 
of  the  community  to  their  illegality,  or  the  evils  which  they 
involve,  even  when  obedience  involves  no  violation  of  the  con- 
science. 

In  the  first  case,  when  the  law  or  ruling  of  the  government 
Two  cases  ^^^^  ^^^  offcnd  the  conscience,  and  commands  no 
supposed.  immorality,  it  may  be  disobeyed  and  called  in  ques- 
tion by  an  appeal  to  whatever  tribunals  are  provided  by  the 
organization  of  the  government,  for  the  purpose  of  testing  the 
validity  and  authority  of  whatever  assumes  to  be  law.  Any  act 
of  disobedience  or  apparent  disloyalty,  which  has  this  purpose, 
cannot  be  considered  immoral,  whatever  form  it  may  assume ; 
inasmuch  as  the  government  itself  provides  for  an  appeal  to 
Caisar  as  the  supreme  judge. 

In  the  second  case  supposed,  when  the  law  is  disobeyed 


§300.]  DUTIES  TO   THE  STATE.  519 

knowingly  and  finally,  in  order  to  direct  or  arouse  the  attention 
of  the  community  to  any  evils  in  its  working,  the  offender  as- 
sumes a  grave  responsibility.  He  takes  the  first  step  towards 
revolution.  It  is  true  that  there  is  a  long  distance  between  the 
first  and  the  final  step ;  but  he  assumes  the  position  of  deliber- 
ate and  open  disobedience,  not  because  the  act  or  order  is 
aflSrmed  immoral,  but  simply  that  he  may  express  his  own  dis- 
approval of  what  the  government  requires,  in  order  to  excite 
the  government  to  a  change  in  its  legislation. 

It  is  obvious  enough,  though  it  is  not  always  conceded,  that 
whether  the  act  required  by  the  government  be  im- 
moral, or  inexpedient,  the  man  who  disobeys  or  re-  both  cases  to 

sists  is  morally  bound  to  accept  and  submit  himself   »<*««»*  t^« 

penalty. 

to  the  penalty  which  the  law  provides,  whether  it  be 
fine  or  stripes,  imprisonment  or  banishment,  or  death.  Whether 
he  discharges  his  conscience  by  refusing  to  obey  a  law  because 
it  requires  an  immoral  act,  or  manifests  his  patriotism  or  his 
humanity  by  protecting  an  offender  against  an  unconstitutional 
or  an  injurious  enactment,  he  owes  it  to  the  government  under 
which  he  lives  to  honor  its  sovereignty  by  accepting  whatever 
penalty  it  assigns  him.  He  may  escape  from  this  sovereignty 
by  abandoning  its  domain  ;  but  so  long  as  he  lives  within  its 
territory  he  is  bound  to  obey  all  its  laws  except  those  against 
which  he  protests,  and,  if  sentenced  to  any  penalty,  to  accept 
that  penalty  without,  resistance. 

To  claim  a  general  liberty  of  abandoning  the  government 
because  it  has  wronged  his  conscience,  or  committed  more  or 
fewer  acts  of  oppression,  and  to  resist  its  authority  while 
one  lives  within  its  domain,  is  to  commit  a  most  heinous  offence 
against  one's  fellow-men.  Whatever  may  be  the  ground  in  the 
abuses  of  the  government  itself,  organized  society  brings  too 
many  blessings  to  its  members  and  subjects,  not  to  impose  upon 
every  man  the  duty  of  submitting  himself  to  its  control  in  every 
form  of  obedience  which  conscience  makes  possible. 

§  300.   (/)  The  last  supposition  which  we  propose  is  when 


520  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL  SCIENCE.  [§  300. 

the  constitution  is  frequently  and  persistently  violated,  or  the 

administration  of  the  government  becomes  intoler- 

the  adminis-     able,  or  SO  fraught  with  abuses  in  its  management  as 

tration  to  be    ^^  outweigh  all  the  evils  which  attend  or  threaten  a 

intolerable. 

change  in  one  or  both.  If  all  government  derives 
its  authority  and  finds  its  life  in  the  consent  of  the  governed, 
there  may  come  a  time  when  the  common  or  universal  sentiment 
breaks  out  into  a  loud  acclaim  that  the  evils  or  abuses  which  are 
suffered  cannot  be  greater,  and  may  be  less,  than  those  which 
will  attend  a  revolution..  This  common  conviction  is  the  only 
justification,  as  it  is  the  only  impulse,  of  a  common  resistance 
to  the  authority  of  the  state. 

Moralists  and  publicists  and  divines  have  questioned  whether 
^,     ,  such    a  conviction    can    ever    be   warranted,   and 

n  nen  is  a 

revolution  whether  such  a  conviction,  if  it  did  exist,  could  ever 
be  so  generally  diffused  as  to  become  a  common 
sentiment,  so  definitely  and  sympathetically  held  as  to  justify 
an  armed  revolution.  It  is  evident  that  absolute  success  can 
rarely,  if  ever,  be  assured  beforehand.  An  insurgent  or  revo- 
lutionary population  can  never  be  absolutely  certain  that  they 
are  strong  enough  to  withstand  the  organized  force  of  the  es- 
tablished government,  assisted,  as  it  may  be,  by  neighboring 
powers.  But  it  can  be  assured,  by  the  severity  and  universality 
of  its  own  calamities,  that,  should  it  fail,  it  can  hardly  suffer 
worse,  and  possibly  may  suffer  less,  than  it  does  under  present 
abuses.  It  is  only  when  such  a  conviction  is  wrought  into  the 
minds  of  the  mass  of  the  people  by  the  universality,  the  intens- 
ity, and  the  continuance  of  its  sufferings,  that  a  revolutionary 
movement  is  justified  to  the  conscience.  This  conviction  can 
never  be  tested  or  measured  by  any  logical  criteria  or  any  scien- 
tific parallels.  Every  justified  revolution  must  plead  its  own 
cause,  and  urge  its  own  defence,  and  risk  its  own  failure. 

A  failure  of  success  does  not  necessarily  involve  criminality 
in  the  intentions  or  the  acts  of  its  originators  or  their  coadju- 
tors.    In  many,  not  to  say  the  most,  of  our  external  actions, 


§301.]  DUTIES   TO   THE  STATE.  521 

whether  they  are  trivial  or  important,  we  are  liable  to  form  mis- 
taken judgments,  even  if  our  intentions  are  the  pur- 

*•      °  '  ^  Failure  does 

est.  But  if  these  intentions  involve  serious  results,  not  imply 
and  their  consequences  concern  the  stability  of  the  *''*™i»»^'ty* 
government  and  the  civil  peace  and  order  of  a  vast  community, 
recklessness  and  haste  are  always  criminal.  A  revolution  is  to 
the  peace  and  order,  the  enjoyments  and  the  hopes,  of  millions 
of  men,  what  an  earthquake  is  to  a  portion  of  the  earth's  sur- 
face and  every  thing  which  enriches  and  beautifies  it.  Professed 
revolutionists  are  ordinarily  the  most  reckless  and  dangerous 
and  most  unprincipled  of  demagogues,  the  natural  enemies 
of  mankind  ;  because  they  unsettle  and  destroy  one  of  the  most 
comprehensive  and  important  of  human  blessings,  the  order  and 
authority  of  the  civil  state.  Whether  they  are  silent  conspira- 
tors against  the  peace  and  stability  of  their  own  or  a  foreign 
country,  or  whether  they  are  violent  and  noisy  preachers  of 
sedition,  they  are  the  enemies  of  mankind,  and  usually  deserve 
to  be  shunned  and  avoided  as  raging  wild  beasts. 

§  301.    (6)  Patriotism  in  feeling  and  conduct  is  a  sacred  and 
a  universal  duty.     The  impulse  to  love  our  country 
is   natural  and   strong.     It  is  an  enlargement  and  is„,  a  posi- 
elevation  of  our  love  for  home  as  the  place  around  **7®  ^^*^^  *"^ 

virtue. 

which  gather  the  associations  of  infancy  and  child- 
hood ;  of  our  familiarity  with,  and  interest  in,  our  neighbors, 
especially  if  these  be  definitely  known  and  incorporated  witli 
the  scenes  and  activities  of  our  early  life ;  of  our  intelligent 
appreciation  of  protection  and  security ;  of  the  enjoyment  of 
liberty,  and  the  security  of  person  and  property.  It  connects 
us  with  the  past  by  all  that  is  romantic  in  the  heroic  age  of  our 
sturdy  ancestors,  by  all  that  is  venerable  in  their  struggles  with 
nature  and  with  hostile  powers,  with  their  aspirations  after  civil 
liberty,  with  the  skill  with  which  they  laid  the  foundations  of 
our  subsequent  prosperity  and  wealth,  with  the  respect  which 
they  have  won  for  us  among  the  great  national  powers,  and  with 
our  capacity  for  moral  and  intellectual  achievements  at  home  and 


622  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL  SCIENCE.  [§  302. 

among  the  nations  of  mankind.  All  this  complex  of  emotions 
of  the  noblest  and  most  elevated  character  is  connected  with 
the  soil  which  our  fathers  planted,  subdued,  and  defended,  from 
which  they  and  we  have  gained  our  wealth,  which  is  filled  with 
the  monuments  of  their  enterprise,  and  made  sacred  to  us  by  the 
graves  in  which  they  were  buried,  and  the  homes  in  which  they 
have  enabled  us  to  dwell  in  peace  and  security. 

True  patriotism  is  sensitive  to  national  defects,  and  zealous 
for  the  moral  welfare,  the  intellectual  culture,  the  aesthetic 
grace,  and  the  religious  faith  of  one's  fellow-citizens.  It  is 
most  opposed  to  the  blatant  and  declamatory  spirit  which  so 
often  bears  its  name,  and  caricatures  its  excellence,  which  in  our 
country  has  done  more  than  any  thing  besides  to  lead  our  citi- 
zens to  forget  that  genuine  patriotism  is  one  of  the  most 
admirable  of  virtues,  as  it  is  one  of  the  most  sacred  of  duties. 

§  302.  We  pass  next  to  the  political  duties  of  the  citizen,  or 
_  ,.^.   ,         his  duties  as  an  administrator  of  the  state.     Thus  far 

Political 

duties  of  we  havc  considered  the  duties  which  every  individ- 
ual owes  to  the  state  as  a  subject  of  its  authority. 
Duties  of  this  class,  as  we  have  noticed  already,  are  frequently 
and  properly  distinguished  as  civil  duties,  or  duties  which  tlie 
individual  owes  to  the  state  as  a  citizen  or  subject.  Speaking 
more  exactly,  we  should  say  they  are  the  duties  which  he  owes 
to  those  of  his  fellow-men  who  are  also  his  fellow-countrymen. 

Duties  of  this  class,  like  all  duties  to  our  fellow-men,  are  de- 
rived from  the  comprehensive  law  of  love  to  all  men,  as  limited 
and  modified  by  the  special  relationships  and  affections  which 
connect  us  with  a  common  government  and  a  common  country. 

We  come  now  to  those  duties  which  are  owed  to  us  through 
the  state  by  those  who  are  in  any  sense  its  organs,  or  adminis- 
trators of  the  government,  and  which  every  citizen  owes  to  his 
fellow-men  so  far  as  he  exercises  any  function  of  this  kind. 
Enumerated  These  functionaries  comprehend  oflScers  of  the  state, 
In  part.  ^f  gyery  description,  whether  they  be  legislative,  judi- 

cial, or  executive.     They  also  include  electors  or  voters  under 


§303.]  DUTIES  TO   THE  STATE.  523 

all  governments  which  are  more  or  less  popular.  Duties  of  this 
class  are  distinguished  as  political  duties,  for  the  reason  that 
the  subject  of  them  is  regarded  as  in  so  far,  or  in  some  sense, 
a  member  of  the  state  when  considered  as  a  polity  or  organism, 
and  as  consequently  in  some  sense  an  organ  of  the  same. 

The  two  classes  of  duties  should  by  no  means  be  confounded, 
as  they  often  are,  by  those  who  fail  to  distinguish 
the  rights  which  the  citizen  or  subject  may  claim  political 
from  his  government, — e.g.,  to  security  and  protec-   duties  often 

./  i  confounded. 

tion,  and  equal  favors  under  the  law,  —  from  the 
right  of  the  citizen  to  act  as  voter  or  an  office-holder.  No 
absurdity  would  seem  to  be  so  extreme  as  that  which  regards 
the  right  of  voting  or  office-holding  as  one  of  the  natural  rights 
of  a  citizen.  The  doctrine  that  the  offices  of  the  state  are  a 
species  of  property  to  which  every  citizen  has  an  equal  claim 
or  natural  right,  and  still  more  emphatically  the  doctrine  that 
the  offices  are  the  spoils  of  a  victorious  political  party,  is  not 
only  destitute  of  any  rational  authority,  but  is  essentially  im- 
moral and  demoralizing. 

§  303.  It  may  be  well  to  repeat  the  truth,  that  the  state  is 
from  its  very  nature  an  organism  ;  that  is,  a  society  jijeg^ate 
constituted  for  and  maintained  by  certain  functions,  necessarily 
which  it  can  only  perform  through  certain  organs.  ^"  **'^^*°  ^ 
These  organs  are  certain  human  beings,  one  or  many,  —  neces- 
sarily very  few  in  comparison  with  the  entire  population  of  even 
the  smallest  commonwealth,  —  to  whom  are  intrusted  these 
functions  of  authority,  decision,  and  action  in  the  name  and 
for  the  well-being  of  the  state.  These  duties  are  more  or  less 
distinctly  defined  by  its  constitutions  and  traditions.  It  is 
essential  to  the  well-being  of  the  state,  that  tfeese  duties  should 
be  performed  with  a  certain  exactness  and  fidelity.  Such  fidelity 
and  exactness  are  required  by  the  civil  statute,  and  are  enforced 
by  the  moral  law.  It  is  also  required  that  many  of  these  duties 
should  be  performed  with  moral  earnestness  and  zeal,  and  with 
the  highest  personal  enthusiasm  and  self-sacrifice.     The  law  of 


524  ELEMENTS  OF  MOEAL  SCIENCE.  [§  303. 

duty  imperatively  demands  that  functions  which  are  so  important 
in  their  consequences,  which  affect  so  many  of  our  fellow-men, 
and  which  represent  the  will  of  so  many  human  beings  as  an 
organized  whole,  should  be  performed  with  intelligence,  with 
gravity,  with  exactness,  with  zeal,  with  energy,  and  at  times 
with  enthusiasm. 

It  follows  that  it  is  the  duty  of  the  lawmaker,  whether  one 
or  many,  to  use  the  utmost  intelligence  in  framing  rules  of 
action  and  methods  of  procedure.  It  is  equally  the  duty  of  ex- 
ecutors and  judges  to  interpret  these  rules  intelligently  and 
uprightly,  and  enforce  them  impartially,  without  respect  of  per- 
sons, in  a  just  and  equitable  spirit.  The  man  who  nominates 
or  recommends  or  votes  for  another  to  an  office,  on  his  honor  is 
bound  to  do  it  honestly  and  wisely,  with  a  sincere  reference  to 
the  end  for  which  the  office  exists  and  ought  to  be  administered. 

Though  every  government  is  an  organism,  in  that  its  agents 
As  such  ^^^  carefully  distinguished,  and  their  functions  are 

supposes  per.  morc  or  less  exactly  defined,  yet  no  government  can 
organs,  g^jg^.  ^^  ^^^  ^^  itself,  by  force  of  any  automatic 
machinery,  however  skilfully  devised,  separately  from  the  men 
who  administer  it.  It  supposes  personal  beings,  who  give  it 
energy  and  effect  by  their  wisdom,  honesty,  and  tact ;  in  short, 
by  their  personal  and  moral  force.  A  state  or  commonwealth, 
when  separated  from  the  men  by  whom  it  is  sustained  and  en- 
forced, must  necessarily  become  a  dead  and  impotent  thing. 
If  the  men  who  act  as  its  organs  do  not  animate  their  official 
doings  with  the  spirit  and  dignity  of  public  duty,  and  breathe 
into  them  the  energy  and  zeal  of  love  and  sympathy  for  those 
whom  they  serve  while  they  govern ;  if  they  do  not  at  least 
dignify  their  official  places  and  official  acts  with  a  decent  self- 
respect, —  the  government  fails  of  some  of  its  most  important 
consequences  of  good.  Official  insolence,  perfunctory  heart- 
lessness,  and  self-consequence  are  the  hideous  or  contemptible 
caricature  of  that  authority  which  should  be  always  associated 
with  becoming  dignity,  even  in  its  exactions  and  its  penalties. 


§§  304,  305.]  DUTIES   TO   THE  STATE.  525 

If  the  state  is  confessedly  and  notoriously  made  the  instrument 
of  individual  greed  or  of  personal  ambition  or  private  favorit- 
ism, through  the  indifference  or  the  selfishness  of  its  officials, 
it  is  abused  and  perverted  by  its  administrators,  and  must  ne- 
cessarily fail  of  its  best  effects.  Inasrnuch  as  civil  government 
is  always  a  necessity,  it  can  never  be  an  utter  failure,  unless  it 
becomes  a  positive  curse  by  causing  more  evil  than  good  ;  that 
is,  unless  it  is  preparing  the  way  for  its  destruction.  But  the 
evil  of  which  it  is  incidentally  the  occasion  may  be  incalculable, 
even  when  it  maintains  civil  order,  and  secures  and  defends  the 
rights  of  men  to  life,  property,  and  personal  liberty. 

§  304.  Civil  government  must  always  be  more  than  a  ma- 
chine, for  the  reason  that  it  is  administered  by  men     . 

•^  The  state 

who  are  personal,  social,  moral,  and  religious  in  more  than 
their  very  nature,  and  for  men  who  must  be  affected  *  ^^^  *"®' 
by  the  character  and  aims  of  those  who  make  and  execute  their 
laws,  and  who  can  not  and  will  not  disconnect  the  spirit  and 
manners  of  tlieir  officials  from  the  legality  or  the  useful  effects 
of  their  doings.  Hence  it  becomes  a  constant  and  imperative 
duty  for  every  official  personage  not  only  to  be  faithful  and  effi- 
cient in  the  administration  of  his  public  trusts,  but  to  administer 
such  trusts  emphatically  in  the  spirit  and  aims  of  uprightness 
and  benevolence.  The  New  Testament  is  abundant  in  its  in- 
culcations of  the  moral  obligation  fully  to  satisfy  the  demands 
of  the  various  relationships  of  life,  particularly  the  social  and 
political ;  but  it  constantly  insists  that  these  duties  should  be 
performed  with  a  loving  and  earnest  spirit,  "as  to  the  Lord, 
and  not  unto  men." 

§  305.  It  need  scarcely  be  repeated,  that  our  argument  sup- 
poses what  has  already  been  said,  that  every  civil  E^ery  civil 
office  is  a  trust,  and  that  the  man  who  fails  to  admin-  <'*<'«  *  '"***• 
ister  it  as  such,  and  for  the  ends  for  which  it  is  created,  offends 
against  the  moral  law.  The  heinousness  of  such  an  offence  is 
proportioned  to  the  importance  of  the  trust,  and  the  sensibility 
to  its  obliofations  which  it  is  fitted  to  awaken.     Such  a  failure 


526  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL   SCIENCE.  [§  306. 

may  be  merely  technical  or  official,  when  it  takes  the  form  of 
simple  neglect  or  oversight  in  respect  to  one's  technical  duties  ; 
or  it  may  be  grossly  criminal,  as  when  an  office  is  administered 
in  an  immoral  spirit.  In  either  case  the  two  offences  are  alike 
moral,  though  not  equally  criminal. 

§  306.  The  sense  of  official  responsibitity  in  official  or  politi- 
cal life  may  be  different  in  different  countries  ;  and 

The  sense  of        ,  .      ,.  .  ,  .  ,-..«- 

official  re-  this  difference  may  m  part  be  owing  to  the  difference 
sponsibiiity     jjj  ^j^g  dignity  and  the  time  of  continuance  of  the 

in  office-  °       "^ 

holder  and  officcs,  and  in  part  to  the  moral  habits  and  spirit  of 
voter.  ^j^g  people.     The  reflex  influence  of  office-holding 

and  political  responsibility  upon  the  moral  character  and  moral 
culture  of  the  community  is  not  inconsiderable.  In  a  country 
in  which  the  offices  of  administration  are  assumed  for  a  long 
term  of  years  or  for  a  lifetime,  and  in  which  the  responsibility 
is  limited  to  a  few  individuals,  in  which  also  the  superior 
officers  are  sternly  held  to  a  strict  supervision  over  their  subor- 
dinates, office-holding  must  necessarily  and  naturally  be  held  to 
involve  responsibilities  which  involve  more  or  less  distinctly 
moral  relationships  and  a  high  sense  of  personal  character. 
In  a  popular  government,  if  the  political  offices  are  held  to  be 
the  natural  and  legitimate  prizes  for  party  services,  which  are 
enjoyed  for  a  brief  period,  it  is  not  so  natural  and  easy  to 
maintain  a  high  sense  of  moral  obligation,  either  in  the  office- 
holder, or  in  the  voter  who  has  the  office  in  his  gift.  We  couple 
the  voter  with  the  government  official ;  because,  in  principle  and 
effect,  every  voter  is  an  organ  and  trustee  of  the  state,  and, 
consequently,  a  government  official  and  administrator.  Whether 
he  vote  directly  or  indirectly  for  the  office-holder,  he  is  himself 
one  of  the  administrators  of  the  government,  and  comes  under 
all  the  responsibilities  of  an  official.  In  such  a  government, 
the  language  everywhere  current  would  seem  to  sanction  and 
enforce  the  doctrine  that  the  people  are  directly  and  solely 
responsible  for  the  character  and  acts  of  their  officials,  and 
are  therefore,  in  their  political  functions,  directly  responsible 


§  307.]  DUTIES  TO   THE  STATE.  627 

to  the  moral  law.  But  the  practical  effect  of  the  system  is  that 
the  people  regard  themselves  as  responsible  to  nobody  except 
to  their  party  leaders.  The  practical  inference  is  too  often, 
that,  inasmuch  as  the  people  are  the  government,  the  officials 
whom  they  elect  are  regarded  as  their  organs  only  as  they  are 
their  servants,  the  mouthpieces  through  whom  they  speak  their 
will,  —  organs,  not  in  the  sense  that  they  have  any  special  func- 
tions to  perform,  but  simply  as  pieces  of  mechanism  who  are  to 
move  as  they  are  bidden. 

The  consequence  follows,  that  the  sense  of  moral  obligation  for  what  is 
supposed  to  be  taken  as  the  people's  will  is  diffused  among  so  many,  that 
no  one  feels  it  to  rest  heavily  upon  himself.  Next,  the  officers  are  changed 
so  frequently,  that,  while  responsibility  for  direct  and  open  pecuniary 
defalcation  to  the  public  may  be  successfully  enforced,  responsibility  can- 
not be  so  easily  enforced  for  personal  fidelity  in  many  other  important 
forms  of  political  duty.  What  is  worst  of  all  in  its  moral  influence  is  the 
doctrine  that  lawmakers  and  the  law-administrator  are  the  servants,  not 
of  the  people,  but  of  a  portion  of  the  people,  —  the  political  party  who 
elected  them,  —  and  are  bound  to  be  the  obedient  servants  of  their  impe- 
rious will  ;  in  other  words,  that  duties  to  one's  party  displace  and  override 
duties  to  one's  country,  to  one's  self,  and  to  God.  These  tendencies  be- 
come still  more  demoralizing  when  the  doctrine  is  accepted,  —  and  it  is  of 
little  import  whether  theoretically  or  practically  — that  the  prime  function 
of  the  holder  of  a  high  place  in  the  gift  of  his  party  is  to  distribute  to 
the  servants  of  that  party  whatever  offices  he  may  be  so  fortunate  or  so 
unscrupulous  as  to  secure  for  them. 

§  307.  Perhaps  no  contrast  is  so  striking' as  that  between  the 
estimates   of   the   sacredness   of   the  state,  and  of  „^        ,    ^ 

'  The  ancient 

the  moral  relations  of  the  servants  of  the  state,  and  modern 
which  prevailed  in  the  ancient,  and  that  which  is  ^  *  ®* 
taught  in  certain  well-known  modern,  schools.  Among  the 
ancient  political  philosophers,  the  state  was  a  sacred  institu- 
tion, cherished  and  defended  by  the  celestial  powers,  who  were 
its  defenders  and  its  pride.  The  boundary  of  one's  country 
was  the  horizon-line  which  inchided  all  the  human  beings  to 
whom  any  obligations  were  acknowledged,  except  certain  gen- 
eral duties  of  sympathy  and  friendship  growing  out  of  a  com- 


528  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL  SCIENCE.  [§  307. 

mon  descent  and  religion.  Within  this  line  was  the  sacred 
commonwealth,  which  included  all  those  fellow-beings  whom 
the  citizen  or  the  man  was  bound  to  love  and  care  for.  To  all 
these  he  was  bound  by  the  most  sacred  obligations ;  and  his 
duties  to  them,  and  the  state  which  encircled  them,  and  the 
gods  who  protected  them,  were  sacred  and  supreme.  If  in  this 
conception  we  find  an  exaggeration  of  the  truth  that  the  state  is 
a  social  organism  which  is  natural  and  necessary  to  man,  and 
therefore  always  a  sacred  institution,  it  is  equally  true  that  the 
modern  theory  of  the  state,  as  an  association  which  is  founded 
on  self-interest,  and  limited  to  the  security  of  life,  property,  and 
personal  freedom,  is  a  more  offensive  exaggeration,  if  it  be  not 
a  caricature,  of  the  truth  that  looks  in  the  opposite  direction. 
The  truth  that  includes  them  both  is,  that,  while  the  state 
accepts  the  law  of  love  which  binds  together  the  moral  universe, 
its  special,  but  by  no  means  its  exclusive,  function  is  the  de- 
fence of  its  own  citizens  in  the  possession  and  security  of  their 
individual  rights.  If  it  be  true,  as  we  have  sought  to  show,  that 
the  rights  of  men  in  the  final  analysis  are  resolved  into  and 
enforced  by  the  duties  which  love  enforces,  the  state  itself 
rests  for  its  authority  on  the  same  force,  —  the  force  which 
holds  the  moral  universe  in  eternal  harmony,  and  includes  and 
expresses  by  a  single  word  all  the  moral  perfections  of  God. 


308.]  DUTIES  TO  ANIMALS.  529 


III. 
CHAPTER  XVII. 

DUTIES  TO  ANIMALS. 

§  308.  It  cannot  be  doubted  that  we  owe  duties  to  animals, 
or  that  these  duties  are  numerous  and  important. 

Animals  are  sentient  beings,  and  many  of  them  are  dependent 
on   man   for  their  enjoyment  and  well-being   both 
directly  and  remotely.     So  far  as  man  can  add  to  ^hich  en- 
this  enjoyment,  even  with  labor  or  loss  or  suffering  '"'■*®  **^®^® 
to  himself  or  to  others,  it  seems  evident,  at  first 
thought,  that  he  ought   to   do   so.     Every  benevolent  human 
being  is  impelled  to  do  this ;  and  therefore,  whenever  this  is 
possible,  and  there  is  no  reason  to  the  contrary,  it  becomes  his 
duty.     Every  natural  impulse  which  is  the  natural  consequence 
of  the  benevolent  will  is  morally  good.     To  feed  an  animal  that 
is  starving,  to  release  an  animal  which  has  fallen  into  a  pit  or 
a  thicket,  to   help  an   animal   in   any  extremity  of   suffering, 
whether  from  pain  or  terror,  is  a  necessity  to  every  good  man, 
and  therefore  is  a  duty  for  every  man,  unless  the  claim  of  some 
other   being   conflicts  with   or  overcomes   this   impulse.     "A 
merciful  man  is  merciful  to  his  beast." 

"He  prayeth  well  who  loveth  well 

Both  man  and  bird  and  beast. 
He  prayeth  best  who  loveth  best 

All  things,  both  great  and  small; 
For  the  dear  God  who  loveth  us, 

He  made  and  loveth  all." 

COLEREDGB. 


530  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL  SCIENCE. 


[§  308. 


Animals  are  also  social.  Whether  good  or  evil  comes  to  them 
Animals  from  society  with  man  or  with   their  kind,  to  in- 

are  social.  crease  their  enjoyment  and  to  diminish  their  suffer- 
ing from  this  source  also  becomes  a  duty.  Whatever  may  be 
this  good  or  evil,  man  is  bound  by  the  law  of  love  to  add  to 
the  one  and  to  diminish  the  other. 

Animals  are  also  capable  of  being  trained  by  man  to  en- 
Capabieof  hanced  enjoyment.  Consequently,  it  becomes  the 
training.  ^^^y  ^f  man,  SO  far  as  this  is  true,  and  no  counter 
claims  interfere,  to  develop  and  train  the  powers  and  enlarge 
the  range  of  the  enjoyments  of  those  animals  that  come  into 
close  and  frequent  intercourse  with  himself.  There  is  abun- 
dant evidence,  moreover,  that  many  animals  are  capable  of  a 
social  happiness  which  is  greatly  enhanced  and  refined  through 
their  associations  with  man  and  his  activities  and  sports.  We 
need  only  name  the  dog,  the  cat,  the  horse,  the  ox,  the  cow,  the 
sheep,  not  a  few  of  the  feathered  tribe,  and  also  the  monkey. 
These  enter  more  or  less  completely  into  special  pleasures  by 
their  intimate  intercourse  with  man.  They  become  more  saga- 
cious in  their  judgments,  more  sensitive  in  their  feelings,  and 
widened  in  the  number  and  refinement  of  their  sorrows  and  joys. 
As  man  learns  to  know  them  more  intimately,  he  also  becomes 
more  sensitive  to  the  indications  of  joy  and  sorrow  which  they 
furnish,  and  more  impelled  to  further  the  one,  and  mitigate  the 
other.  In  consequence,  the  duties  of  men  to  the  animals  with 
whom  they  become  closely  connected  are  largely  increased,  and 
in  proportion  are  less  easily  evaded  or  denied. 

The  moral  discipline  to  gentleness  and  patience  and  self- 
denial  which  is  sometimes  wrought  by  his  dog  or  his 
and  enforce      horsc  in  an  otherwise  morose  and  selfish  and  brutal 

a  moral  master  is  not  infrequently  noticeable  and  effective, 

discipline.  ^  *^ 

Contrariwise,    the    hidden    brutality   or   selfishness 

which  is  sometimes  wi'eaked  upon  one  of  the  pets  of  the  house- 
hold by  an  otherwise  decorous  and  well-bred  man  or  woman  has 
an  important  moral  significance  as  a  manifestation  of  unfeeling 


§  308.]  DUTIES   TO  ANIMALS.  531 

selfishness.  If  man  owes  these  duties  so  far  as  animals  them- 
selves are  concerned,  and  especially  those  which  are  intimately 
associated  with  man,  their  claims  upon  us  are  in  some  respects 
similar  to  those  which  may  be  urged  by  our  fellow-men. 

But  though  these  claims  are  similar,  they  are  still  greatly 
unlike  in  the  responses  of  duty  which  they  evoke, 
as  well  as  far  more  limited  in  their  reach.     Animals  neither 
cannot  urffe  their  claims  upon  man  as  rights,  for  p*^*'*'*"*! 

^  ^  ^        ^  nor  moral. 

the  reason  that  they  cannot  enforce  them  by  the 
appeal  to  our  consciences,  that  we  know  that  they  know  that 
these  acts  are  duties  from  us  to  them.  Our  duties  to  them  are, 
in  two  particulars  only,  similar  to  those  which  we  owe  to  our 
fellow-men.  We  are  bound  to  supply  their  wants,  and  to  per- 
fect their  powers  ;  but  only  in  an  imperfect  sense  are  we  bound 
to  accord  their  rights.  In  the  special  and  completed  sense  of 
the  term,  they  have  no  rights  ;  for  the  reason  that  they  are  not 
moral,  having  no  sense  of  what  is  due  to  themselves,  and  no 
capacity  to  appeal  to  the  consciences  of  others.  The  claims 
which  they  make,  or  seem  to  make,  are  accompanied  by  no 
conscious  and  fervid  appeal  on  their  part  to  our  sense  of  duty, 
or  by  any  conviction  on  their  part  that  we  ought,  to  give  them 
what  they  ask  for.  Hence  the  moral  weakness  of  their  appeals, 
which  is  imperfectly  supplied  by  the  utmost  of  the  passionate 
rage  and  brute  fury  with  which  they  sometimes  turn  upon  the 
men  who  cross  their  wishes,  or  disappoint  their  expectations. 

Next  to  the  duty  to  supply  the  wants  of  dependent  animals 
is  the  special  duty  of  wisely  training,  so  far  as  we  j)„^y  ^^ 
may,  the  animals  which  are  in  any  sense  committed  training 

.  .  animals. 

to  our  care.  Ihat  this  is  a  duty  to  the  animals 
themselves,  is  obvious  from  their  capacity  to  be  educated  by 
such  training,  and  to  gain  more  or  less  enjoyment  from  the 
discipline  which  follows.  Few  men  are  aware  how  wide  and 
various  are  the  opportunities,  and  how  imperative  is  the  duty, 
to  enhance  the  enjoyment  of  the  animals  with  which  they  are 
associated,  by  means  of  wise  and  judicious  and  patient  training. 


532  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL   SCIENCE.  [§  309. 

The  domestic  animals  of  a  household  which  is  controlled  by  a 
spirit  of  order  and  kindness  in  this  particular  seem  almost  to 
belong  to  another  species  than  those  of  a  family  in  which  con- 
science or  skill  in  this  service  is  absent.  It  would  almost 
seem  as  though  the  horses  and  herds  and  fowls  of  the  one  came 
from  a  different  stock  as  compared  with  those  of  the  other, 
especially  if  the  discipline  of  gentleness  and  method  has  been 
tried  from  the  birth  of  the  animals  in  question,  and  been  re- 
enforced  by  physiological  heredity.  That  men  need  to  be 
awakened  to  a  sense  of  their  defects  and  opportunities  in 
respect  to  this  class  of  duties,  is  obvious.  That,  when  they  are 
aroused  to  any  just  estimate  of  both,  and  are  quickened  to  heed 
the  suggestions  of  wisdom  and  the  voice  of  conscience,  the 
animals  which  haunt  the  houses  and  are  seen  in  the  streets  of 
men  will  be  in  a  sense  transformed  by  sympathy  with  their 
masters,  cannot  be  doubted. 

§  309.  We  are  to  remember,  however,  that  animals  occupy 
The  place  of    ^  place  which  is  subordinate  to  man  in  the  economy 

animals  is       Qf  nature,  and  the  purposes  and  plans  of  the  Crea- 

snbordinate 

to  that  of       tor.     For  this   reason   man   not  only  may,  but  he 

"•*"•  ought,  to  use  animals  as  his  servants,  and  the  instru- 

ments to  his  necessities  and  his  enjoyments.  We  have  already 
adverted  to  the  fact  that  animals  have  no  moral  or  rational 
personality,  and  consequently  have  no  such  sense  of  personal 
rights  as  can  be  enforced  by  an  appeal  to  the  consciences  of 
the  human  beings  with  whom  they  hold  their  intercourse  of 
affection  and  obedience.  Their  subordinate  position  in  the 
universe  is  obvious  to  any  one  who  believes  in  such  an  economy, 
whether  or  not  he  finds  in  it  the  manifestation  of  the  will  and 
purpose  of  God,  or  whether  he  resorts  to  one  or  the  other  or  to 
both  for  the  regulation  and  justification  of  his  conduct.  If  he 
does  not  derive  his  authority  to  use  animals  from  this  source, 
he  must  rest  his  claim  upon  his  own  superior  strength  and  skill. 
When  he  asks  himself.  By  what  consideration  can  I  justify 
myself  in  yoking  an  animal  to  the  plough,  in  killing  him  for 


§  310.]  DUTIES  TO  ANIMALS.  533 

food,  in  destroying  a  bird  or  beast  of  prey,  in  taking  him  for 
sport,  or  in  subjecting  him  to  the  experiments  of  science?  he 
can  give  no  other  reason  than  this  :  that  such  are  the  intentions 
of  nature,  or  such  is  the  will  of  its  wise  Ruler. 

Man  is  first  driven  by  necessity  and  fear  to  defend  himself 
against  the  strength  and  fury  of  beasts  of  prey.  He  next  learns 
to  capture  them  by  his  skill.  Next  he  uses  the  flesh  of  fish  and 
fowl  and  game ;  he  learns  to  rejoice  in  the  excitement  of  the 
chase ;  he  avails  himself  of  their  strength ;  and,  finally,  he 
experiments  upon  their  life  and  health,  that  he  may  prolong 
and  save  his  own.  Impulse  first  inclines  him  to  each  of  these 
modes  of  dealing  with  animals.  Reflection  and  conscience 
justify  him  in  each  and  all,  and  whatever  they  involve  in  his 
tastes  and  habits,  in  his  expenditures,  his  institutions,  and  even 
in  his  literature. 

§  310.  (1)  Man  is  justified  in  taking  the  life  of  beasts  and 
birds  of  prey,  whether  they  endanger  his  life,  or 
destroy  his  property,  or  interfere  with  his  reasonable  and  birds 
enjoyments.  In  some  cases,  the  question  which  ^  ^^^^' 
arises  between  the  man  and  the  animal  is,  whether  the  man  or 
the  beast  shall  live.  If  the  man  does  not  kill  the  animal,  the 
animal  will  destroy  the  man.  The  impulse  to  self-defence  is 
sure  to  prevail,  and  it  is  reasonable  and  right  that  it  should. 
The  interest  to  save  his  own  life  is  so  active,  so  intense  and 
pre-occupying,  and  withal  so  consonant  to  reason,  as  to  require 
no  formal  justification  before  the  conscience  of  man.  As  the 
struggle  for  existence  becomes  less  frequent  and  less  energetic, 
man  finds  other  satisfying  reasons  for  continuing  this  warfare  in 
the  reflection  that  the  life  of  man,  as  an  individual  and  as  a 
race,  is  of  higher  worth  in  the  esteem  of  reason  and  the  consent 
of  God,  than  the  continuance  of  the  rattlesnake,  the  tiger,  or 
the  hyena,  either  as  an  individual  or  a  species.  More  profound 
knowledge  of  the  intentions  of  nature  would  suggest  and  confirm 
the  conclusion  that  the  struggle  with  animal  life  is  most  useful 
and  most  necessary  for  the  well-being  of  man  in  trainmg  him  to 


534  ELEMENTS  OF  MOBAL   SCIENCE.  [§  311. 

a  higher  type  of  manhood,  and  was  designed  to  terminate  with 
the  practical  extinction  of  the  more  savage  animals,  at  least  on 
the  land. 

§  311.  (2)  Closely  connected  with  the  necessary  strife  with 
beasts  of  prey,  is  the  killing  of   animals  for  food. 

(2)  Killing  ^     *^'  °  ,  ^  .,^   , 

animals  for  But  what  right  has  the  reasoning  and  more  skilful 
'**®'^*  animal  to  destroy  another  animal  in  order  to  feed  on 

his  flesh  ?  He  is  not  compelled  to  do  this  in  order  to  save  his 
own  life.  Vegetable  food  abounds,  and  may  be  mdefinitely 
increased  in  quantity,  and  improved  in  quality.  If  it  is  not 
more  healthful,  it  is  certainly  equally  conducive  to  health  and 
life.  Milk  and  eggs  supply  all  the  animal  nutriment  which  can 
be  absolutely  required.  The  vegetarians  reason  after  this 
fashion,  when  they  contend,  that,  for  man  to  take  the  life  of  an 
animal  to  sustain  his  own,  is  an  offence  against  the  law  of  love, 
and,  in  a  sense,  a  violation  of  the  animal's  rights. 

The  only  satisfying  reply  to  this  argument  is  to  be  found  in 
DedsiTe  the  manifest  arrangements  and  intentions  of  nature 

argument.  ^nd  of  God,  which  indicate,  if  they  do  not  demon- 
strate, that  unless  the  lives  of  animals  were  shortened  for  the 
sustenance  of  man,  and  were  their  increase  unregulated  by  man, 
man  would  find  no  place  in  the  earth  for  himself,  because  he 
would  be  crowded  out  of  being  for  want  of  both  food  and  stand- 
ing-place ;  both  of  which  would  be  appropriated  by  the  harm- 
less domestic  animal,  unless,  indeed,  the  beasts  of  prey  should 
first  destroy  both  man  and  his  domestic  friends. 

Let  this  be  as  it  may,  the  consideration  which  decides  the 
question  of  duty  is  this:  Man  is  fond  of  animal  food,  and 
thrives  upon  it  in  those  zones  and  climates  in  which  he  uses  it ; 
and  there  is  no  special  sacredness  in  the  life  of  an  animal  as 
indicated  in  the  arrangements  of  nature,  except  so  far  as  the 
animal  is  intimately  associated  with  human  society.  As  be- 
tween animals,  it  is  the  law  of  nature,  that  one  animal  should 
feed  upon  another,  from  the  lowest  up  to  the  highest.  Physi- 
ology has  demonstrated,  at  least,  that  vegetable  materials,  when 


§§  312,  313.]  DUTIES  TO  ANIMALS.  535 

converted  into  animal  flesh,  are  prepared  to  be  re-digested  by 
man.  Man  prefers  animal  food  as  a  part  of  his  sustenance  in 
those  countries  in  which  he  seems  to  require  it.  Every  person 
seems  to  favor  its  use,  and  there  is  no  decisive  reason  against 
it.  For  these  reasons,  we  conclude  that  it  is  always  morally 
right,  and  it  may  sometimes  be  the  duty  of  man,  to  use  flesh 
for  food. 

§  312.  (3)  Man  is  justified  in  using  the  strength  of  the  animal 
to  supplement  or  take  the  place  of  his  own.     He   ,„,  „, 

^  ^  ^  (3)  The  use 

mounts  the  horse  or  the  camel,  and  spares  himself  of  animal 
the  fatigue  of  walking  or  of  carrying  heavy  burdens.  ^  "^^"^ 
By  their  service,  also,  he  makes  rapid  journeys.  He  contrives 
rude  vehicles,  in  which  he  compels  the  horse,  the  ox,  and  the 
elephant  to  drag  him  and  his  burdens.  He  invents  rude 
machinery,  which  he  first  propels  himself,  and  then  impels  by 
the  power  of  the  horse ;  and,  finally,  measures  the  capacity  of 
other  agents  by  the  animal  which  was  first  employed  the  most 
conspicuously  in  this  kind  of  service.  Had  the  horse  been 
unemployed  in  these  useful  services,  man  himself  would  either 
have  been  overcome  by  nature,  or  the  resources  of  nature  in 
agriculture  and  commerce,  which  have  been  so  variously  de- 
veloped by  the  use  of  animal  strength  and  mechanical  appli- 
ances, would  have  been  slowly  discovered  and  applied.  The 
beneficial  results  of  animal  service  amply  justify  the  employ- 
ment of  the  means  which  have  contributed  to  their  production. 
The  actual  effects  of  the  use  of  animal  power  in  the  past,  and 
its  possible  and  probable  effects  in  the  future,  indicate,  or 
rather  illustrate,  —  if,  indeed,  they  do  not  demonstrate,  —  that 
this  subjection  of  the  animal  to  the  interests  of  man  is  in  prin- 
ciple not  only  consistent  with,  but  justified  by,  the  law  of  duty. 
§  313.  (4)  We  use  animals  for  sport.  We  not  only  kill  them 
for  food  ;  but  we  add  to  the  value  of  what  we  take,   ,,,  _.      . 

'  (4)  Use  of 

the  heightened  interest  which  attends  our  skill  and   animals  for 
exhilaration  in  their  capture  and  death.    We  not  only  ^^  ^  ' 
destroy  the  fish,  the  wild  game,  and  the  beasts  of  prey  which 


636  ELEMENTS  OF  MOBAL   SCIENCE.  [§  314. 

are  the  pests  of  the  farmer ;  but  we  take  a  special  delight  in  the 
skill  and  arts  which  are  required  in  taking  and  destroying  them. 
We  even  breed  and  preserve  animals  of  many  sorts  for  the  very 
purpose  of  hunting  them.  We  train  dogs  and  other  animal 
helpers  for  the  simple  service  of  giving  zest  and  success  to  our 
sport.  Is  sporting  in  these  various  forms  moratly  justifiable? 
In  relation  to  this  question,  moralists  differ ;  some  holding  with 
the  greatest  earnestness  that  it  involves  needless  waste  and 
gratuitous  cruelty,  and  others  that  it  may  be  morally  salutary. 

In  discussing  this  question,  it  is  no  more  than  fair  that  the 
sportsman  should  plead  his  own  cause.  The  genuine  sportsman 
urges  that  the  man  who  derives  the  keenest  satisfaction  from 
sporting  proper  will  be  the  loudest  and  most  positive  to  con- 
demn the  waste  of  animal  life  which  is  not  infrequently  allowed 
by  men  who  call  themselves  huntsmen  and  fishermen.  His 
habits  and  tastes  combine  with  his  regard  for  the  interest  and 
the  honor  of  the  craft,  to  discourage  and  condemn  cruelty  of 
every  description.  The  incidental  advantages  of  health,  self- 
reliance,  and  courage,  which  attend  fishing  and  hunting  of  every 
sort,  are  not  inconsiderable.  That  many  excesses  and  immo- 
ralities attend  the  abuses  of  this  animating  and  exhilarating  life, 
may  be  conceded,  while  yet  it  remains  true  that  its  enjoyments 
are  legitimate,  and  its  advantages  are  manifold.  Men  of  the 
most  elevated  moral  characters,  whose  tastes  have  been  trained 
in  this  direction,  have  indulged  these  tastes  with  a  good  con- 
science and  the  favoring  judgment  of  the  best  of  their  fellow- 
men. 

§  314.  (5)  Animals  are  subjected  to  physiological  and  path- 
(5)  Use  of  ological  experiments,  some  of  which  are  painful, 
animals  and  many  long-continued,  for  the  sake  of  discoveries 

in  physiol- 
ogy and  m  respect  to  the  conditions  of  life  and  health,  of 

pathology.       disease  and  its  cure.     These  experiments  have  not 

been  unknown  for  many  generations.     It  is  within  recent  years, 

however,  that  they  have  been  renewed  upon  an  extensive  scale, 

and  been  used  with  the  greatest  freedom.     They  have   been 


§314.]  DUTIES  TO  ANIMALS.  537 

applied  to  every  part  and  organ  of  the  body ;  and  in  every 
form  of  drug  and  lesion,  of  disturbance  of  function  and  of 
torture,  have  sometimes  been  continued  for  days  and  weeks. 
The  excesses  in  the  number  of  trials,  the  unfeeling  disregard 
of  the  suffering  involved,  the  repetition  of  experiments  to  gratify 
the  idle  curiosity  of  the  inquirer,  or  to  display  the  dexterity  of 
the  operator,  have  aroused  in  many  circles  an  intense  and 
protracted  opposition  to  the  practice,  and  caused  it  to  be  con- 
demned as  wholly  unjustifiable,  and  denounced  in  the  severest 
terms.  Not  a  few  persons  in  Europe  and  America,  whose 
judgments  are  ordinarily  candid  and  just,  have  pronounced  vivi- 
section to  be  criminally  immoral. 

This  unqualified  condemnation  cannot  be  sustained.  If  ani- 
mals can  be  lawfully  used  for  food,  their  life  and  comfort  may 
be  sacrificed  in  the  interest  of  the  art  of  healing.  This  propo- 
sition would  seem  to  be  self-evident.  Whether  experiments 
of  vivisection  are  necessary  in  the  service  of  pathological  or 
therapeutic  science,  may  be  questioned  by  some.  There  are 
few  who  know  any  thing  of  the  questions  which  modern  physiol- 
ogy seeks  to  answer,  or  the  problems  which  pathology  proposes 
to  itself,  and  who  understand  how  varied  and  important  are  the 
services  which  vivisection  can  render  to  both,  who  will  question 
that  vivisection  to  a  certain  extent  is  not  only  justifiable  but 
is  humane.  It  is  equally  evident,  that  when  it  is  needless  it  is 
immoral  in  the  extreme.  Nor  is  its  use  limited  to  experiments 
for  discovery,  as  some  contend.  It  may  be  employed  as  right- 
fully in  the  illustration  of  medical  science.  Enforcement  and 
illustration  may  be  as  essential,  and  require  vivisection  as  truly, 
for  the  pupil,  as  investigation  did  for  the  discoverer.  Even 
when  it  has  become  needless  for  discovery,  it  may  yet  be  need- 
ful for  illustration  and  enforcement :  when  it  is  no  longer 
required  for  the  accomplished  master  of  science,  it  may  yet 
be  most  useful  for  his  pupil. 

It  remains  true,  however,  that  indifference  and  barbarity  in 
feeling  or  in  act,  with  respect  to  the  sufferings  of  the  animals 


538  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL   SCIENCE.  [§  314. 

which  are  subjected  to  scientific  researches,  are  grossly  immoral. 
They  are  specially  inexcusable  when  anaesthetic  applications  are 
so  efifective,  and  so  generally  do  not  interfere  with  the  success 
of  many  otherwise  cruel  and  even  revolting  experiments.  It 
may  be  said  with  little  qualification,  that  to  use  vivisection  in 
teaching,  or  experimenting  before  a  public  audience,  or  a  lec- 
ture-room class,  can  rarely  be  justified  ;  and  the  employment  of 
it  should  be  condemned.  The  discovery  of  anaesthetics,  very 
nearly  at  the  time  when  this  new  field  of  research  was  opened 
to  investigation,  would  almost  seem  to  be  a  protest  of  a  merci- 
ful Providence  against  every  species  of  immoral  cruelty  under 
the  fair  name  of  scientific  experimentation  on  the  part  of  the 
students  of  the  diseases  of  men,  and  their  remedies. 


§  315. J  DUTIES  TO   THE  PHYSICAL   WOBLD.  639 


lY. 
CHAPTER    XVIII. 

DUTIES  WHICH  RESPECT  THE  PHYSICAL  WORLD. 

§  315.  That  man  owes  some  duties  to  the  material  world,  is 
obvious.     He  cau  discover  its  resources,  and  apply  These  duties 
them  to  the  use  and  enjoj'ment  of   man.     He  can  are  twofold. 
also  interpret  the  significance  of  nature  as  a  revelation  of  spirit- 
ual and  ethical  truth. 

(1)  It  is  the  duty  of  man  to  discover  and  apply  the  resources 
of  the  material  world  for  the  use  and  enjoyment  of 
mankind.     In  the  judgment  of  many,  and  at  first  ^j.  and  apply" 
thought,  perhaps,  in  the  judgment  of  all  men,  this  ***®  resources 

of  nature. 

comprehensive  class  of  duties  would  be  placed 
among  those  which  man  owes  to  himself,  his  fellow-men,  and 
his  Creator.  That  is,  it  would  be  urged  that  man  ought  to 
study  and  master  nature,  in  order  to  use  his  power  over  her 
resources,  and  his  knowledge  of  her  secrets,  in  one  of  these 
three  applications.  Nature,  it  is  urged,  is  nothing,  except  as 
the  servant  or  companion  of  man.  For  the  reasons  already 
given,  however  (§  151),  we  assign  these  duties  to  a  separate 
class.  .  The  natural  impulses  of  man  also  impel  him  to  these 
activities  with  respect  to  the  material  universe.  He  is  incited 
by  curiosity  to  discover  its  properties.  He  is  impelled  to  gain 
a  profounder  insight  into  the  laws  which  govern  its  workings. 
His  invention  is  challenged  to  devise  the  means  and  instruments 
by  which  he  can  gratify  the  desires  which  his  discoveries  and 


540  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL  SCIENCE.  [§  315. 

devices  will  enable  him  to  satisfy.  His  successes  in  the  past 
animate  and  stimulate  his  faith  in  what  he  can  do  in  the  future. 
Whether  he  interprets  the  various  indications  which  he  meets 
as  the  intimations  of  nature,  or  the  revelations  of  God,  he  finds 
these  impulses  to  be  sanctioned  by  conscience.  If  there  is  any 
comprehensive  duty  which  is  written  upon  the  earth  and  upon 
the  sky  in  unmistakable  characters,  it  is  the  duty  to  study  the 
secrets  of  nature  for  the  benefit  and  delight  of  man  and  the 
glory  of  God.  Nor  need  we  separate  the  interest  of  knowl- 
edge from  the  interest  of  useful  application.  Utility  in  the 
largest  sense  belongs  to  every  result  which  affects  man's  well- 
being.  Simply  to  know,  whether  we  know  facts  or  princi- 
ples, gratifies  and  elevates  man  ;  to  invent  and  interpret,  gives 
him  a  special  and  noble  satisfaction ;  to  apply  our  knowledge 
to  ends  which  directly  concern  man's  enjoyment,  or  train  him 
to  purer  affections  and  a  worthier  life,  are  all  motives  which  in- 
cite us  to  master  the  secrets  and  control  the  resources  of  nature. 
We  cannot  here  distinguish  the  practical  and  the  scientific 
knowledge  of  nature.  If  the  one  is  obligatory,  so 
practical  is  the  Other.  We  may  not  say  that  the  knowledge 
knowledge       which  Can  be  used  in  common  life  is  obligatory, 

of  nature. 

while  that  which  admits  of  no  immediate  application 
is  of  questionable  authority,  and  perhaps  is  a  waste  of  time 
or  a  perversion  of  the  powers.  Such  a  distinction  cannot  be 
maintained ;  for  the  reason  that  we  never  can  be  certain  that 
any  knowledge  is  useless,  least  of  all  any  knowledge  which 
concerns  the  world  of  matter  or  its  secrets.  The  prosecution 
of  the  science  of  nature,  when  regarded  from  this  light,  be- 
comes a  duty.  No  limit  can  be  prescribed  to  activities  of  this 
sort,  especially  since  many  of  the  remotest  and  most  recondite 
facts  and  truths  have  been  found  to  render  the  most  important 
„,  service  to  man. 

PleasnreH 

from  nature  The  pleasures  which  attend  the  knowledge  of 
eg  ma  e.  nature,  the  consciousness  of  insight  and  of  power 
which   it  gives,  and  the  ethical  lessons  and  habits  which   it 


§  315.]  DUTIES  TO   THE  PHYSICAL    WOELD.  541 

imparts,  enforce  the  acquisition  of  this  knowledge  as  a  duty 
upon  every  man  to  whom  it  is  possible.  The  duty  applies 
to  every  kind  and  degree  of  knowledge,  from  the  most  ele- 
mentary to  the  most  recondite.  It  also  applies  to  all  persons 
by  whom  such  knowledge  is  attainable.  No  man  or  woman  or 
child  should  remain  ignorant  of  any  fact  or  truth  of  nature 
which  can  be  acquired  in  consistency  with  the  claims  of  other 
duties.  Nature  is  a  book,  ever  open  to  all,  which  no  one  may 
neglect  or  refuse  to  read.  To  refuse  is  to  rob  one's  self  of 
conscious  insight  and  power.  It  is  also  to  limit  one's  power 
to  instruct  and  enhghten  others.  It  is  to  be  ungrateful  and 
unjust  in  the  use  of  one's  powers  and  opportunities. 

It  is  also,  if  possible,  more  positively  our  duty  to  develop 
and  manifest  those  material  resources  and  appli-  The  enlarge- 
ances  which  contribute  directly  to  our  own  happi-   ^^^^  *"^  ^ 

•^  *■  *^        development 

ness  and  that  of  our  fellow-men.  A  field  which  is  of  her 
so  enriched  and  cultivated  as  to  produce  a  luxuriant 
crop,  a  lawn  which  is  always  smooth  and  always  green,  a  farm 
that  is  well  fenced,  and  glows  with  rich  and  varied  harvests, 
a  grove  in  which  every  tree  betokens  the  care  of  a  master,  a 
garden  which  is  his  perpetual  delight,  are  oftentimes  the  bril- 
liant exemplifications  and  products  of  conscientious  devotion 
to  duty,  which  has  spared  neither  time  nor  patience  nor  labor. 
It  is  not  extravagant  to  say,  that,  as  men  become  morally 
better,  the  garden  of  the  sluggard,  the  lazy,  the  shiftless,  and 
the  drunkard,  will  be  more  rare  than  at  present ;  that  the 
aspect  of  nature  will  shine  wherever  the  foot  of  man  shall 
tread  upon  it ;  and  the  earth  in  its  beauty  will  reflect  the  joy 
which  grateful  and  conscientious  serenity  shall  spread  upon  its 
surface.  The  noblest  and  most  inspiring  representations  of  the 
future  perfection  of  man,  in  all  moral  and  spiritual  achieve- 
ments, are  fitly  symbolized,  by  the  Hebrew  prophets,  by  the 
transformations  of  the  face  of  nature  as  an  effect  of  his  skill 
and  art  on  the  one  hand,  and  in  sympathy  with  his  improved 
character  on  the  other. 


542  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL  SCIENCE.  [§  316. 

Indolence,  sensuality,  passion,  and  pride  do  not  always  de- 
form and  deface  nature,  but  they  often  do.  Self-control  and 
temperance  and  industry  do  not  always  inspire  to  science,  or 
manifest  themselves  in  the  triumphs  of  science  or  the  achieve- 
ments of  art ;  but  they  tend  in  this  direction.  They  certainly 
remove  the  most  serious  obstacles  tliat  stand  in  the  way  of 
the  more  rapid  achievements  of  man  in  unveiling  the  secrets 
of  the  physical  universe,  and  applying  them  for  the  welfare  of 
man. 

§  316.  (2)  But  nature  is  more  than  a  storehouse  of  the  wealth 
N  t  which  man's  insight  can  discover.      The  physical 

manifests  universe  is  even  more  than  a  system  of  forces  and 
imagination  ^  rcvcaler  of  laws,  which  give  the  intellect  insight 
and  tiie  and   power.      Nature  addresses  the  feelings,  and 

quickens  the  imagination,  and  enforces  lessons  of 
duty,  and  reveals  God  to  the  reason  and  the  conscience.  How 
this  is  done,  cannot  easily  be  explained.  The  processes  may 
defy  our  analysis,  and  yet  we  may  be  certain  of  the  results. 
It  cannot  be  denied  that  these  effects  have- been  wrought  upon 
many  who  have  studied  the  aspects  of  nature  with  the  most 
curious  and  attentive  application,  and  endeavored  to  appl}'  the 
lessons  which  nature  suggests  to  their  moral  sensibilities,  and 
the  aspirations  that  reach  after  a  nobler  life.  The  most  illiter- 
ate and  untaught  have  sometimes  shown  themselves  sensitively 
receptive  of  these  impressions.  The  most  accomplished  stu- 
dents of  nature,  in  her  scientific  aspects,  have  often  been  the 
most  open  to  these  higher  influences.  We  infer  that  it  is  the 
duty  of  every  man  to  open  his  mind  and  heart  to  all  these 
suggestions,  and  to  gain  from  them  the  lessons  and  impres- 
sions which  nature  has  in  her  gift  for  every  man  who  will  listen 
and  learn.  The  poetic  and  spiritual  interpretation  of  nature 
may  become  man's  noblest  occupation  and  highest  joy,  and 
hence  it  is  enforced  as  his  constant  duty  in  every  form  in 
which  it  may  be  achieved. 


§317.]  DUTIES  TO  GOD.  543 


CHAPTER  XIX. 

DUTIES  TO  GOD. 

§  317.  As  the  ground  of  these  duties,  we  assume  that  God 
exists,  and  is  knowable  by  man ;  that  he  is  a  per-  Grounds  of 
sonal  Being,  with  personal  sympathies  and  affec-  t'»ese  duties, 
tions  ;  that  he  is  moral  in  his  character  and  actions  ;  that  he  is 
also  a  moral  ruler ;  that  he  is  forgiving  and  redeeming  towards 
men  in  their  sins  and  weakness ;  and  that  in  all  these  relations 
he  is  morally  perfect.  This  comprehensive  view  may  be  called 
the  view  of  natural  theism,  as  interpreted  by  moral  science. 
Christian  theism  goes  farther,  and  teaches  that  he  has  made 
his  character  and  administration  manifest  and  effective  with 
man  by  the  life  and  death  of  Jesus  the  Christ,  as  is  recorded  in 
the  Christian  history  and  is  believed  in  the  Christian  Church ; 
and  that  he  is  also  present  by  his  Providence  and  Spirit  in  the 
affairs  of  men.  These  truths,  of  both  natural  and  Christian 
theism,  we  accept  as  unquestioned,  as  the  basis  of  our  views 
of  man's  duties  to  God.  If  they  are  questioned,  they  must 
be  proved  in  other  treatises  than  this. 

We  are  concerned  only  with  those  principles  and  rules  of 
duty  which  are  fairly  derived   and  deduced  from   rn^gg^  truths 
these  motives,  as  applied  to  the  moral  nature  of  involve  cer- 
man.     These  truths  being  given,  they  involve  cer-    *  "  "  *®^* 
tain  permanent  relationships  to  man  on  the  part  of  God,  and 
certain  sentiments  and  affections  toward  God  on  the  part  of 
man,  both  of  which  are  the  foundation  of  his  religious  duties. 


544  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL  SCIENCE, 


[§  318. 


It  will  be  remembered  that  morality  has  to  do  with  the'  affec- 
tions, only  so  far  as  they  are  voluntary,  and  affect  the  actions, 
habits,  and  character ;  that  it  does  not  propose  to  originate, 
but  only  to  regulate,  the  natural  groundwork  which  it  finds 
man  to  possess.  These  impulses  and  affections  it  allows  or 
represses  :  it  increases  or  relaxes  their  energy,  and  thus  matures 
them  into  voluntary  habits  by  the  repetition  of  positive  efforts 
or  resisting  conflicts. 

§  318.  We  find,  then,  that  man  is  capable  of  certain  natural 
Natural  affections  towards   the  Supreme  Being.     These  we 

religious         may  call   the   theopathic  affections.     Whether  the 

affections.  .    .      i  -i^     •  „ 

ongmal  capacity  m  man  for  such  affections  is  dis- 
tinguishable from  kindred  sensibilities  which  connect  him  with 
his  fellow-men,  it  is  not  necessary  to  inquire.  It  is  obvious 
that  their  existence  and  activity  are  independent  of  man's  will, 
and  that  as  natural  sentiments  they  have  no  moral  quality.  As 
natural  sensibilities,  they  also  differ  in  their  positive  and  rela- 
tive energy.  It  is  only  as  natural  reverence,  gratitude,  wor- 
ship, hope,  and  trust  are  modified  by  the  character  and  will,  that 
they  can  have  moral  significance  or  worth.  Not  only  is  the  rela- 
tive strength  of  these  affections  seriously  affected  by  the  re-act- 
ing influences  which  proceed  from  the  will  and  the  indulgence 
of  them  in  sentiment  and  impulse ;  but  as  single  affections  they 
may,  by  disuse,  be  dwarfed  into  the  poverty  and  limitations  of 
merely  rudimentary  organs.  As  the  eye,  the  hand,  and  the  foot, 
or  some  of  the  vital  organs,  by  neglect  or  perversion  may  be- 
come dwarfed  and  inert,  so  may  it  be  with  the  natural  religious 
affections.  The  natural  capacities  of  some  men  for  religious 
reverence,  trust,  hope,  and  desire,  seem  to  shrink  into  nothing- 
ness, and  almost  wholly  to  die  out.  On  the  other  hand,  under 
the  stimulating  warmth  and  light  of  an  unselfish  will,  the  germs 
of  natural  religious  feeling  may  kindle  into  the  ardors  of  intense 
emotion.  We  may  trace  the  influence  of  religious  faith,  in  its 
influence  upon  the  feelings  and  character,  by  several  supposi- 
tious. 


§  319.]  DUTIES   TO  GOD.  545 

§  319.   (1)  We  will  first  suppose  God  to  be  recognized  sim- 
ply as  self-existent  and  absolute,  and  as  such  to  be 

First  snpposi- 

an  object  of  wonder  and  worship.  tion:  God  as 

In  whatever  way  man  comes  to  the  knowledge  of  *^^«'"te  and 

''  ®  self-existent. 

God,  and  on  whatever  ground  he  believes  God  to 
exist,  he  certainly , possesses  capacities  for  this  reverence  and 
worship.  Whether  God  be  personal  or  impersonal,  whether  he 
be  the  Absolute  or  the  Infinite,  he  is  in  some  sense  self-existent 
and  independent,  and  as  such  is  recognized  as  a  mystery  which 
must  give  us  pause,  and  excite  to  wonder,  and  exact  of  us 
responsive  homage.  The  sublimity  and  incomprehensibleness 
of  the  relations  involved  in  the  existence  of  such  a  being, 
whether  contemplated  as  an  ideal  or  accepted  as  a  fact,  must 
stimulate  and  exalt  the  imagination.  Even  the  limited  universe 
is  vast  and  complicated  enough  to  elevate  and  fill  the  mind,  and 
move  and  awe  the  emotions.  How  much  more  does  the  con- 
ception of  an  unknown  beyond  subdue  while  it  exalts  the 
emotions  of  natural  or  "  kosmical  worship  "  !  If  this  unknown 
is  accepted  as  also  the  unknowable,  the  response  of  dazed  rev- 
erence that  is  blinded  by  excess  of  light  is  still  more  positive. 
If  the  self -existent  Absolute  is  held  to  be  more,  and  is  accepted 
as  a  Person  with  personal  intelligence  and  personal  affections, 
the  mystery  inseparable  from  the  dark  background  of  imper- 
sonality is  heightened  and  deepened  by  the  emergence  of  the 
relations  in  which  the  living  and  personal  God  presents  himself 
to  the  faith  of  man,  who  is  himself  a  person,  and  the  communion 
of  his  conscious  adoration.  In  whichever  of  these  characters 
God  is  believed  by  man,  he  must  exact  from  him  more  or  less 
of  the  homage  of  natural  worship. 

We  may  arrest  our  constructive  course  at  this  point,  and  ask 
how  far  is  this  natural  worship,  in  any  or  all  of  its  j^j^^y^j^,  ,^q^. 
forms,  a  matter  of  moral  obligation.  We  reply,  man  ship  morally 
is  bound  to  exercise  these  emotions  in  kind  and 
degree  and  frequency  so  far  as  they  would  be  the  natural 
products  of  a  character  controlled  by  a  righteous  will.     To  a 


• 


546  ELEMENTS  OF  MOBAL   SCIENCE.  [§  320. 

right-hearted  man,  thoughts  of  God  must  be  always  suggested, 
inasmuch  as  every  event  manifests  his  presence  and  agency. 
The  emotions  of  worship  in  the  forms  of  reverence  and  adora- 
tion would  be  constant  and  fervent.  These  affections,  and  the 
actions  which  would  express  them,  would  include  all  the  duties 
to  which  a  man  would  be  impelled  by  the  religious  faith  which 
we  have  conceived.  The  religious  defects  and  sins  of  which 
such  a  man  could  be  guilty  would  be  the  infrequent  recogni- 
tion of  God,  such  as  selfishness  or  passion  would  involve,  and 
the  consequent  feebler  activit}^  of  his  religious  affections,  and 
the  dwarfing  of  the  capacities  for  their  exercise. 

§  320.   (2)  Let  us  next  assume  or  suppose,  that  God  is  endowed 

with  moral  perfections;  i.e.,  that  he  is  a  personal 
hupposiiion:  Being  who  is  perfectly  good.  Towards  such  a 
God  morally     Being,  the  Capacities  of  natural  feeling  on  the  part 

of  man  would  be  proportionately  diversified  and 
enlarged.  Whether  our  own  characters  were  morally  good  or 
evil,  we  should  naturally  respect  and  honor  a  perfect  example 
of  goodness  in  God.  Such  homage  is  inseparable  from  the  ex- 
istence of  conscience  in  ourselves,  which  involves  honor  to  moral 
perfection  in  others,  most  of  all  in  God,  so  far  as  we  recognize 
its  authority  over  ourselves.  To  the  natural  wonder  and  wor- 
ship of  God  as  self-existent  and  supreme,  and  the  sympathetic 
reverence  for  him  as  personal,  conscience  would  add  a  reverent 
awe  for  his  spotless  holiness,  and  the  desire  to  imitate  his  per- 
fection. If  natural  worship  must,  as  we  have  seen,  take  on  an 
ethical  type,  even  though  its  subject  were  merely  a  self-existent 
Absolute,  or  a  sj^mpathetic  natural  Person,  much  more  must  it 
become  intensely  ethical  so  soon  as  the  object  of  our  worship  is 
recognized  as  the  heavenly  Father.  An  intense  moral  sympa- 
thy and  affection  always  exist  between  two  moral  persons  who 
have  the  same  moral  ideal.  It  must  necessarily  be  intensified 
between  two  beings  bound  by  the  ties  of  Creator  and  creature, 
of  Father  in  heaven  and  child  on  earth.  The  law  of  love,  so 
far  as  it  is  honored  and  obeyed,  would  of  itself  suggest  the 


§320.]  DUTIES  TO   GOD.  547 

precept,  "Be  ye  therefore  perfect,   even   as  your  Father  in 
heaven  is  perfect." 

(3)  To  the  attributes  already  supposed,  we  may  add  those  of 
a  moral   Ruler.     Personality,  in  its   completeness, 

.         ,        .         Third  suppo- 

implies   moral  law  and  moral  character  m  the  in-   sition :  That 
most  relations,  whether  the  person  be  man  or  God.   ^^'^  ^^  ^^^^  * 

moral  Ruler. 

Moral  personality,  in  either,  also  implies  moral  au- 
thority and  rule  with  respect  to  other  persons.  The  moral  law 
requires,  not  only  that  the  individual  should  himself  be  morally 
perfect,  but  that  he  should  exercise  his  personal  influence  to  in- 
duce others  to  be  perfect  like  himself.  This  he  can  only  do,  as 
he  manifests  his  complacency  and  dislike  towards  them  according 
to  their  obedience  or  non-obedience  to  the  moral  rule  which  he 
accepts  as  supreme  for  himself.  To  the  exercise  of  this  influence, 
each  man  is  impelled  by  the  force  of  his  own  moral  feelings. 
These  impulses  are  sanctioned  by  the  beneficent  results  that  are 
known  to  follow  the  restraints  and  excitements  of  a  wise  govern- 
ment for  moral  ends.  Moral  government  is,  in  fact,  found  every- 
where, where  there  are  moral  persons,  —  in  every  society,  in  the 
family,  the  state,  even  in  communities  that  are  partially  organ- 
ized and  short-lived.  It  is  universally  acknowledged  to  be  not 
only  salutary,  but  necessary.  The  natural  supremacy  of  God 
exalts  him  to  the  throne  of  the  universe  by  the  authority  of 
natural  and  moral  fitness.  He  is  acknowledged  as  the  rightful 
Ruler,  by  the  spontaneous  assent  and  unanimous  consent  of  the 
good,  and  the  convicted  consciences  of  the  bad. 

Two  objections  are  urged  against  the  legitimacy  of  moral 
rule  as  an  agency  of  moral  influence :  — 

(1)  It  is  contended,  that  the  influence  of  authority  is  mer- 
cenary, and   therefore   inferior  in  quality,  even  if 
not  inconsistent  with  those  motives  which  are  drawn  tions  against 
from  the  excellence  of  virtue  and  the  odiousness  of  jj^'^coli,'^"^* 
vice.     Virtue,  it  is  urged,  should  attract  by  its  own   (i)  it  is 
charms,  and  vice  repel  by  its  own  offensiveness. 
It  is  essential  to  our  love  or  hatred  of  either,  that  we  should 


548  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL   SCIENCE.  [§  320. 

love  them  for  their  own  sake,  and  not  at  all  for  the  sake  of  the 
friendship  or  favor  of  other  persons  towards  ourselves.  So 
soon  as  we  love  goodness  because  God  will  love  us  if  we  do, 
or  hate  vice  because  we  dread  his  displeasure,  we,  in  efifect, 
cease  to  love  or  hate  either. 

To  this  objection  we  oppose  the  reply :  When  we  love  virtue 
or  hate  vice  for  its  own  sake,  we  are  not,  and  cannot  be, 
indifferent  to  our  own  favor  or  condemnation.  If  we  are 
not  controlled  by  these  affections,  we  are  at  least  moved  by  the 
reward  or  punishment  which  comes  from  within  ourselves.  So 
long  as  man  is  a  law  to  himself,  he  is  an  awarder  to  himself  of 
reward  and  punishment  within.  When  he  adds  the  consenting 
judgment  and  sympathy  of  others  to  his  own  self -re  ward  or 
self-condemnation,  no  weakening  or  divisions  of  the  hfghest 
motives  are  conceivable.  Two  impulses,  both  laudable,  are 
used  in  place  of  one,  —  the  will  of  the  personal  conscience,  and 
the  coinciding  will  of  the  personal  God. 

(2)  It  is  objected,  that  moral  rule   supposes   punishment, 

which  always  is  an  intrusive  and  odious  instrumen- 

that  it  tality,  and  as  such  is  inconsistent  with  the  personal 

implies  independence  of  the  moral  subject.     But  punish- 

punishment. 

ment,  or  the  displeasure  of  others,  does  not  await 
the  good,  but  only  the  bad,  who  are  hostile  to  the  common  weal, 
and  deserve  the  evil  which  they  suffer.  The  use  of  punish- 
ment, when  just,  cannot  possibly  involve  so  much  evil  as  the 
absence  of  punishment,  with  the  rampant  attitude  which  moral 
evil  assumes  when  unrestrained.  The  moral  energy  of  pun- 
ishment, it  should  always  be  remembered,  does  not  consist  in 
the  sensible  good  or  evil  which  it  promotes  or  threatens,  but 
in  what  punishment  expresses  of  the  person  who  inflicts  it. 
This  favor  or  displeasure  no  good  man  has  a  right  to  withhold, 
or  should  care  to  restrain.  Coinciding,  as  it  always  must,  with 
the  self-complacency  or  remorse  of  the  individual  himself,  it 
enforces  both  by  his  sensitive  sympathy  with  similar  feelings 
on  the  part  of  Him  whose   personality  reasonably  sways   all 


§§321,322.]  DUTIES  TO   GOD.  549 

persons  who   bear  his   image,   and  who   is   greater  than  our 
hearts. 

§  321.  If  these  principles  are  sound,  then  it  follows   that 
every  man  is  bound  to  accept  God  as  his  own  moral   ^ 

'^  ^  Conclusion: 

Ruler,  and  to  recognize  his  personal  will  as  a  motive  Duty  of  every 
to  his  character  and  conduct.  It  is  almost  trivial,  ™*"* 
and  yet  it  may  be  important,  to  say,  that  he  is  as  truly  bound 
to  acknowledge  himself  a  loyal  subject  of  the  kingdom  of 
God,  as  he  is  to  confess  and  demean  himself  a  loyal  citizen 
of  the  civil  state.  The  motives  derived  from  the  authority  of 
God  are  needed  by  every  man.  Their  influence  exalts  and 
strengthens,  rather  than  humiliates  and  weakens,  the  character. 
The  consequences  of  distinctly  acknowledging  this  relationship 
in  our  theories  of  public  and  private  duty  are  wide-reaching  and 
most  important. 

Practical!}',  an  intelligent  and  cordial  submission  to  God  as 
our  moral  Ruler  must  affect  the  principles,  the  feel- 

Inflaence 

mgs,  and  the  conduct.     The  natural  and  personal  of  the  moral 
reverence  for  God,  which  we  have   recognized  as   recognition 

^  of  God. 

common  to  all  men,  becomes  under  its  influence  a 
righteous  fear  to  offend  against  God's  rightful  authority.  Our 
natural  reverence  for  God  rises  into  a  sentiment  which  is  hal- 
lowed b}"  moral  awe.  Our  sorrow  for  the  degradation  and  folly 
of  our  moral  failures  becomes  a  personal  confession  of  personal 
sins.  In  short,  every  natural  duty  and  affection  towards  the 
Creator  and  Father  of  our  spirits  is  ennobled  by  the  recognition 
of  God  as  our  rightful  moral  Sovereign. 

§  322.   (4)  God  may  also  be  known  as  a  forgiving  God  and  a 
Redeemer  to  man  as  sinful  and  morally  weak.   These  Fourth 
aspects  of  his  character  and  administration  open  the  supposition: 

^  God  forgiv- 

way  for  the  special  and  eminently  personal  affections  ing  and 
of  gratitude,  confidence,  and  hope.    Repentance  and  ""^d®®"*^"^- 
a  better  life  must  always  be  enforced  by  the  authority  of  con- 
science and  the  moral  law,  whether  there  is  or  is  not  help  and 
hope  from  God.     Man  can  never  be  excused  from  djity,  what- 


550  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL  SCIENCE.     [§§  323, 324. 

ever  the  past  may  have  been.  He  can  never  excuse  himself, 
whether  or  not  he  can  be  forgiven  and  admitted  to  the  favor 
of  God.  So  soon,  however,  as  he  can  be  forgiven,  and  the 
restoration  of  moral  strength  becomes  possible  by  the  favor 
of  God,  then  hope  and  courage  and  gratitude  become  duties, 
which  should  be  cherished  as  the  impulses  to  a  new  and  restored 
moral  life. 

§  323.  The  fact  of  sin  as  ill-deserving,  and  tending  to  weak- 
ness and  corruption,  and  man's  consequent  need  of 
ill-desert         forgiveness   and   help,   is   more   or   less   distinctly 

nniTersaiiy  recognized  in  all  positive  religions.  Most  if  not 
recognized.  . 

all  these  religions  promise  forgiveness  and  help  on 

some  conditions.  The  fact  that  those  religions  are  distorted 
by  superstitions,  and  perverted  to  immoral  and  debasing  ex- 
cesses, may  serve  to  show  that  the  convictions  of  men,  in 
respect  to  their  needs,  are  well  founded ;  that  they  need  for- 
giveness and  help,  as  well  as  the  assurance  of  both,  to  meet 
their  profoundest  wants  and  fears.  The  theism  of  the  Scrip- 
tures, as  it  is  completed  in  the  New  Testament,  is  not  more 
unique  for  its  representations  of  God,  and  his  communications 
to  man,  than  it  is  for  the  emotions  and  duties  which  these 
truths  inspire  and  enjoin.  In  the  complete  adaptation  of  both 
to  meet  man's  deepest  and  most  permanent  needs,  we  find  the 
most  decisive  evidence  of  their  objective  and  subjective  truth. 
§  324.  We  gather  these  separate  inferences  into  the  compre- 
hensive formula :  Every  form  of  religious  duty  is 
Comprehen-  "^  o  j 

give  concia-  enforced  by  the  conscience  so  far,  and  so  far  only, 
*  "°*  as  the  obligation  to  perform  it  is  a  natural  and 

necessary  inference  from  whatever  is  accepted  as  religious 
truth.  Religious  duty  is  in  its  nature  more  sacred  than  duty 
in  any  other  form,  because  the  influences  of  religious  motives 
and  forces  are  more  needed,  and  are  more  effective,  than  those 
which  enforce  duties  of  an}"  other  description.  God  is  nearer 
to  man  than  any  other  person  can  be.  He  touches  man  more 
constantly,  and  at  pointsof  contact  to  which  no   other  being 


§325.]  DUTIES  TO  GOD.  551 

can  have  access.  He  commands  a  reverence  which  by  divine 
right  takes  precedence  of  every  other  species  of  worship.'  He 
exacts  a  gratitude  which  no  other  benefactor  can  claim.  He 
enforces  personal  loyalty  and  obedience  such  as  no  other  ruler 
calls  forth.  He  requires  repentance  with  an  emphasis  which  no 
other  offended  father  and  sovereign  can  possibly  assert ;  and 
he  manifests  a  patience  under  neglect  and  ingratitude,  which 
no  other  injured  being  can  be  conceived  to  exemplify.  The 
mute  patience  of  the  living  and  loving  Father  of  men,  which 
is  manifest  in  nature,  is  consummated  in  the  life  and  death  of 
Him  who  was  "the  brightness  of  the  Father's  glory."  In  all 
these  methods  and  arguments,  does  God  make  his  appeal  to 
the  conscience  ;  and  to  each  of  these  appeals  does  conscience 
respond.  It  follows  that  the  man  who  obeys  conscience,  and 
loves  duty,  must  in  his  heart  love  and  obey  God. 

§  325.  These  principles  explain  the  relations  of  morality  to 
reliofion.     They  enable  us  to  see  that  morality  fur- 

o  J  J  Relations  of 

nishes  the  criteria  by  which  to  try  and  judge  religion  morality  to 
in  its  objective  principles  and  its  practical  spirit.  '®^*^^®"' 
They  dissipate  the  notion,  that,  while  religion  in  some  form  is 
a  necessity,  any  one  of  its  forms  is  as  good  as  another ;  the 
form  in  which  each  generation  shapes  and  utters  its  concep- 
tions of  the  divine,  and  expresses  its  aspirations,  being  the 
best  fitted  to  its  wants.  Those  who  adopt  this  theory  urge 
the  following :  Each  people  and  race  must  form  some  ideas  of 
the  Unseen,  which  are  imaged  in  temple  and  statue  and  shrine, 
and  before  which  each  presents  its  ritual  of  sacrifice  or  offer- 
ing, of  prayer  or  song.  Whatever  either  may  be,  each  one 
meets  the  wants  and  expresses  the  culture  of  the  worshippers ; 
except  that  every  religion  in  a  sense  elevates  the  people  who 
accept  it,  lifting  them  up  to  a  higher  stage,  and  contributing  its 
impulse  to  human  progress.  Therefore  one  religion  is  as  good 
as  another ;  or,  rather,  the  religion  which  any  people  may 
conceive  or  frame  is  the  best  and  only  religion  that  is  possible 
for  their  needs. 


552  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL   SCIENCE.  [§  325. 

There  is  sufficieot  truth  in  these  statements  to  make  them 
plausible :  there  are  also  in  them  a  very  serious  oversight  and 
error.  While  it  is  true  that  no  religion  can  continue  to  exist 
which  does  not  appeal  to  the  conscience,  and  has  not  some 
moral  pretext  or  plausibility,  it  is  also  true  that  religion  can 
become  one  of  the  most  effective  agents  for  the  corruption  of 
the  conscience  and  the  degradation  of  the  life.  Hence,  so  far 
is  it  from  being  true  that  one  religion  is  as  good  as  another,  or 
that  religion  in  any  form  is  a  necessary  force  for  good,  that 
it  may,  and  often  does,  become  a  potent  instrument  for  evil. 
Even  the  purest  and  truest  religion,  so  soon  as  it  is  separated 
from  the  conscience  in  its  practical  working,  may  become  one 
of  the  most  effective  agents  of  demoralization.  Christianity 
itself,  even  in  its  purest  forms,  and  under  the  most  sedulous 
care,  has  been  constantly  liable  to  perversion  and  abuse  in  the 
form  of  doctrinal  or  ethical  misconception.  It  would  seem  as 
though  the  most  elevating  of  all  agencies  in  its  nature  could 
become  the  most  debasing  in  its  actual  working.  Hence  the 
force  and  the  need  of  the  practical  test  of  creeds  and  ritual 
and  disciples,  so  wisely  provided  and  so  unsparingly  enforced 
by  its  Founder :  "Ye  shall  know  them  by  their  fruits." 

It  follows  also,  that  morality,  in  the  deeper  and  the  pro- 
founder  meaning  of  the  word,  is  necessary  to  give  to  religion 
its  truth  and  its  worth. 

It  is  equally  true,  on  the  other  hand,  that  religion  gives  to 
morality  its  life.  Hence  morality  cannot  dispense  with  religion, 
but  needs  religion  to  enforce  and  animate  its  commands  and 
inspiration.  The  personal  motives  which  religion  furnishes 
must  be  superadded  to  the  motives  of  conscience,  to  render  them 
energetic  and  effective.  The  experience  of  individuals  and  the 
history  of  the  race  confirm  the  truth,  that,  while  morality  is 
required  to  elevate  and  direct  religion,  religion  is  equally  neces- 
sary to  give  force  and  effect  to  morality. 


§  326.]  SPECIAL  RELIGIOUS  DUTIES,  553 


CHAPTER  XX. 

SPECIAL  RELIGIOUS  DUTIES. 

§  326.  It  has  already  been  explained,  that,  while  morality 
begins  with  the  purposes  and  dispositions  as  voluntary  acts 
and  states,  it  does  not  end  with  either,  but  reaches  forward  to 
the  feelings  and  external  actions.  This  is  pre-eminentl}^  true 
of  religious  duties,  inasmuch  as  religion  is  the  last  and  noblest 
outcome,  as  well  as  the  inmost  spring  and  manifestation,  of  a 
right  moral  character. 

The  first  and  most  comprehensive  of  religious  duties  is  to 
possess  a  religious  character,  such  as  is  justified  and   ^^  r^^ 


required  by  the  conscience.     No  duty  can  be  truly  a  religious 
moral  which  does  not  spring  from  the  character,   which  ig 
No  character  can  be  morally  right  which  does  not  «****«**• 
consciously  or  unconsciously  recognize  religious  motives,  and 
impel  to  religious  duties.     It  is  conceivable  that  a  man  should 
be  good  at  heart,  whose  religious  faith  is  neither  definite  nor 
settled.     Education,  pre-occupations,  prejudices,  and  ignorance 
may  hinder  or  embarrass  the  development  of  the  religious  emo- 
tions and  activities.     While,  for  such  defects,  the  man  is  more 
or  less  responsible,  he  may  still  in  heart  be  true,  not  only  to 
conscience,  but  to  God-    Indeed,  if  a  man  is  true  to  the  one,  he 
must  be  true  to  the  other.     Such  exceptions  prove,  rather  than 
weaken,  the  rule  that  the  first  and  great  duty  of  man  is  to  pos- 
sess a  religious  character.     It  is  a  laW  of  nature  and  of  reason : 
"  Thou  Shalt  love  the  Lord  thy  God  with  all  thy  heart.'* 


554  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL   SCIENCE.  [§  307. 

The  character  is  manifested  and  strengthened  by  appropriate 
This  should  special  actions.  These  are  threefold,  —  the  intellect- 
be  manifest-  ual,  the  emotional,  and  the  external,  —  constituting 
three  classes  of  duties ;  the  will,  the  immediate 
agent  of  the  dutiful  or  ethical  choosing,  being  supposed  to  be 
present,  and  to  animate  and  dii*ect  each  and  all  of  these  forms 
of  action. 

§  327.  The  intellectual  duties,  or  duties  of  faith,  are  compre- 
inteiiectuai  hcndcd  under  the  rule,  that  it  is  the  duty  of  every 
duties'©^'  man  to  possess  correct,  complete,  and  fixed  religious 
faith.  opinions.     All  religious  motives,  as  has  been  ex- 

plained, are  derived  from  faith  in  spiritual  beings  and  truths. 
These  truths  do  not  touch  the  spirit,  nor  address  the  senses, 
except  on  infrequent  and  extraordinary  occasions.  Even  if  the 
one  or  the  other  or  both  were  true,  what  is  believed  concerning 
religious  objects  must  be  asserted  and  assented  to  in  the  form 
of  opinions  or  a  creed.  These  truths  are  capable  of  an  ex- 
haustless  variety  of  statement,  argument  and  appeal.  It  is 
essential  even  to  one's  intellectual  energy,  that  his  religiohs 
creed  should  be  held  firmly,  and,  so  far  as  he  is  a  reasonable 
and  thinking  being,  that  it  should  be  held  rationally  and  wisely. 
So  far  as  a  man  is  uncertain  and  indefinite  in  his  religious 
belief,  so  far  is  the  power  of  his  faith  to  control  and  animate 
his  feelings  and  conduct  weakened  or  destroyed.  The  entire 
destruction  of  an  uttered  and  reasoned  creed  might  not  involve 
the  absolute  negation  of  religious  faith,  for  the  reason  that  one's 
latent  and  unexpressed  belief  may  survive  that  assent  which  is 
the  product  and  takes  the  form  of  reflection  and  logic :  such  a 
negative  creed,  however,  must  greatly  weaken,  if  it  does  not 
wholly  suspend  the  operation  of  religious  motives,  for  the  rea- 
son that  the  weakening  of  conscious  intelligent  assent  involves 
the  weakening  of  religious  impulse  and  inspiration.  The  re- 
ligious opinions  should  be  correct,  in  order  that  the  tnith  of 
motives  should  be  represented  ;  they  should  be  complete,  that 
these  motives  may  be  harmonious  and  well-rounded ;  and  they 


§  328.]  SPECIAL  BELIGIOUS  DUTIES.  555 

should  be  fixed,  in  order  that  they  may  act  with  the  energy 
which  is  required. 

§  328.  If  the  attainment  and  retention  of  faith  are  obliga- 
tory, it  is  also  obligatory  to  use  the  means  which  are  ^  ,  , 

•^    '  &  J  Duty    to    „gg 

essential  to  these  effects.  The  time,  the  thought,  the  means 
the  reading  and  reflection,  which  may  be  demanded,  ^'^  **  *"  * 
should  be  expended  with  a  conscientious  spirit.  Inasmuch 
also  as  the  decision  of  questions  of  faith  may  be  more  or  less 
affected  by  the  inclinations  and  prejudices,  these  inquiries  should 
be  conducted  in  an  honest  and  candid  temper.  Special  care 
should  be  taken,  that  no  biasing  influences  should  withdraw 
the  attention  from  any  important  evidence,  or  persuade  to  par- 
tial or  one-sided  views.  When  a  conclusion  is  reached,  it 
should  be  distinctly  avowed  to  others  in  all  self-respecting  ways, 
in  order  that  it  may  be  positive  for  one's  self  and  pledged  to 
others.  This  is  the  more  necessary  if  the  profession  of  one's 
faith  involves  any  sacrifice  of  reputation  or  social  position,  or 
discomfort.  The  general  obligation  to  truth  and  manliness,  to 
say  nothing  of  special  duties  to  one's  self  and  to  God,  exacts 
this  duty. 

There  are  peculiar  obligations  which  rest  upon  every  man  with  respect 
to  the  religion  in  which  he  has  been  educated.    The  religious    „      .  ,    .  j, 
faith  and  opinions  of  every  child  and  youth  are  necessarily    gations  in 
formed  at  first  by  the  teaching  of  others,  and  are  founded    the  revision 
very  largely  on  the  confidence  which  we  give  to  our  kinsfolk    of  traditional 
and  friends.    "We  say  very  largely,  but  not  wholly;  for  what- 
ever in  our  traditional  faith  is  true,  and  is  fitted  to  our  nature  as  truth, 
will  be  responded  to  by  the  conscience  even  of  a  child,  and  even  impart 
a  sanction  and  sacredness  to  much  that  is  erroneous  and  defective.    As 
we  grow  older,  we  are  necessarily  summoned  to  the  duty  of  justifying  our 
faith  to  our  reflective  judgment.    In  doing  this,  we  must  revise  this  faith 
in  the  light  of  our  maturer  and  more  independent  thinking.    This  i^rocess 
should  be  conducted  with  all  the  thoroughness  possible,  with  all  the  aids 
which  the  community  of  believers  can  give,  with  all  the  critical  suggestions 
which  reason  enforces,  and  with  an  honest  and  earnest  desire  to  find  and 
hold  the  truth. 

Upon  the  issue  of  such  an  inquiry  concerning  one's  faith,  will  depend  the 
most  important  consequences  to  the  moral  life.    Every  man  who  thinks 


556  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL   SCIENCE,  [§  329. 

must  have  a  creed  and  a  religion  of  some  sort  or  other.  Atheism,  scepti- 
cism, agnosticism,  all  have  a  positive  as  truly  as  a  negative  side-  "What 
each  man  holds  concerning  the  Unseen,  must  mould  and  animate,  must 
elevate  or  depress,  his  moral  life.  Among  all  known  religions,  Christianity- 
is  distinguished  for  exacting,  as  the  condition  of  human  blessedness,  a  per- 
sonal faith,  the  product  of  reason  as  illumined  by  divine  guidance  and  help, 
which  must  be  achieved  by  every  individual  for  himself.  Whether  histor- 
ical and  supernatural  Christianity  be  true  or  false,  this  doctrine  of  faith  can 
never  be  shaken,  and  with  it  the  obligation  that  rests  upon  every  person  in 
a  Christian  country,  to  appropriate  to  himself  whatever  spiritual  force  there 
is  in  its  objective  motives,  and  whatever  energy  lies  in  its  subjective  trust 
and  hope.  The  great  question,  whether  Christianity  is  from  God,  and 
what  is  its  import  as  a  motive  power,  should  be  met  and  decided  by  every 
man  with  a  just  appreciation  of  its  ethical  importance. 

Earnestness  and  seriousness  in  forming  and  holding  religious  opinions 
are  consistent  with  toleration  and  charity  for  those  who  differ 
Possibility  from  us  This  is  made  to  appear  from  the  consideration,  that 
f  "i      f  /  *^®  truth  which  corresponds  to  faith  as  a  duty  and  a  spiritual 

and  charity,  impulse  is  personal  and  concrete,  rather  than  abstract  and 
reflective.  The  creeds  and  theologies  which  are  expressed 
in  language  are  easily  distinguished  from  the  individual  faiths  of  individual 
men.  Men  may  agree  in  the  substantial  features  of  their  personal  faith, 
who  diifer  in  respect  to  the  propositions  in  which  this  faith  is  expressed. 
For  many  purposes,  creeds  and  systems  are  not  only  desirable  but  neces- 
sary ;  yet  it  should  never  be  forgotten,  that  they  are  always  subsidiary  to 
personal  belief.  For  this  reason,  those  who  differ  in  respect  to  symbols, 
more  or  less,  should  not  only  tolerate  one  another  for  reasons  of  fairness 
and  courtesy,  but  from  the  higher  motives  of  charity  which  thinketh  no 
evil,  and  which  is  suflSciently  enlightened  to  know  that  differences  in 
intellectual  assent  are  compatible  with  unity  in  living  faith. 

If  these  truths  are  kept  in  view,  progress  in  the  science  of  religion 
becomes  not  only  a  conscientious  right,  but  a  religious  duty.  The  earnest 
study  of  religious  and  Christian  truth  becomes  imperative  under  all  the 
light  which  is  certain  to  be  shed  upon  God's  relations  to  man  by  history, 
science,  and  philosophy.  The  use  of  this  light  for  individual  and  social 
illumination  becomes  a  sacred  obligation  enforced  by  conscience  and  by 
God. 

§  329.   The  duties   of  religious   feeling   are   obligatory  for 
two  reasons.     The  first :  religious  emotions  are  the 

Duties  of  ° 

religions  natural  and  necessary  response  to  religious  truth 
feeling.  ^^^  religious  motives.     Tlie  second  :  religious  mo- 

tives and  influences,  being  pre-eminently  personal,  act  directly 


§  330.]  SPECIAL  RELIGIOUS  DUTIES.  557 

upon  the  emotions ;  and  therefore  strong  and  warm  emotions 
are  properly  required  as  the  measure  and  evidence  of  religious 
fidelity.  Indeed,  faith  in  the  religious  and  especially  in  the 
Christian  sense  of  the  term,  is  conceived  as  partly  intellectual 
and  partly  emotional ;  blending  the  assent  of  the  intellect  with 
the  consent  of  the  heart.  It  involves  definite  and  permanent 
convictions,  and  implies  earnest  and  intense  emotion. 

The  prominent  forms  of  religious  feeling  are  reverence,  grati- 
tude, penitence,  trust,  hope,  peace,  and  joy.    Hence 
these  are  all  enjoined  as  positive  duties.     Inasmuch,   religious 
however,  as  men  differ  very  widely  in  respect  to  ^®^""^' 
temperament  and  emotional  habits,  these  differences  are  partly 
constitutional,  and  partly  the  results  of  inward  and  outward 
culture.     No  fixed  standard  of  duty,  or  ideal  of  achievement, 
can  be  definitely  conceived,  or  imposed  upon  all.     Individu- 
ality in  religious  emotion  should  be  most  strenuously  guarded 
and  conceded,  as  the  only  security  against  cant  and  hypoc- 
risy. 

The  exercise  and  culture  of  the  religious  affections  is  an  in- 
dispensable and  essential  duty,  for  the  reason  that  Doty  of 
it  is  through  these  emotions  that  religious  truth  **^®  **"*®* 
holds  and  increases  its  power  over  the  man.  The  emotions 
themselves  are  the  most  efficient  of  which  man  is  capable. 
When  thoroughly  aroused  and  constantly  sustained,  they  ex- 
clude and  control  every  inferior  affection.  It  is  useless  to 
contend  against  appetite  and  ambition  and  greed  and  indo- 
lence and  pride,  so  long  as  no  superior  and  warmer  feeling 
takes  their  place.  But  the  instant  that  any  man  yields  his 
heart  to  the  love  and  gratitude  and  hope  which  are  ready  to  be 
kindled  by  the  revelation  of  God  and  Christ  and  heaven,  he  has 
gamed  the  victory.  He  has  fulfilled  the  precept,  "Walk  in  the 
Spuit,  and  ye  shall  not  fulfil  the  lusts  of  the  flesh."   p„t,esof 

§  330.  The  duties   of  religious  action  are  bmd-   religious 
ing,   because  they  are  the  natural  and  necessary 
manifestations  of  the  purposes  and  emotions.     As  all  actions 


558  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL  SCIENCE.  [§  331. 

should  be  impelled  and  controlled  by  religious  motives,  every 
act  enforced  by  the  conscience  becomes  a  religious  duty.  As 
no  intention  or  feeling  can  be  regarded  as  complete  until  it 
has  been  expressed  and  embodied  in  word  or  look  or  deed, 
the  obligation  to  purpose  and  feel  includes  the  obligation 
to  speak  and  look  and  act  rightly.  The  doctrine  so  emphati- 
cally emphasized  in  the  Christian  ethics,  that  the  heart  is  all 
in  all,  that  the  tree  must  be  good  if  the  fruit  is  to  be  good, 
has  not  infrequently  been  abused  to  excuse  from  external 
action,  and  even  to  sanction  actions  that  are  questionable, 
under  the  seemingly  fair  but  actually  foul  casuistry  that  good 
intentions  excuse  or  hallow  injurious  deeds.  The  security 
against,  and  the  protection  from,  these  perversions  is  to  be 
found  in  the  principle  that  the  good  tree  must  and  will  bring 
forth  good  fruit. 

When  we  proceed  to  name  and  classify  the  religious  duties, 
we  find  ourselves  embarrassed  by  the  truth,  that,  inasmuch  as 
every  act  of  duty  is  enforced  by  religious  motives,  it  follows 
that  every  obligatory  act  is  a  religious  dut3^  Whatsoever  we 
do,  we  are  commanded  to  do  it  ''  as  unto  the  Lord.'*  For  the 
reasons  already  given,  we  limit  ourselves  to  acts  that  are  the 
expression  a^d,  so  to  speak,  the  completion,  of  some  intention 
which  is  direc;t|ly  concerned  with  personal  homage  or  emotion 
or  honor  to  God.  Such  are  the  duties  of  professing  our  reli- 
gious faith,  of  imparting  it  to  others,  and  the  expression  of 
our  emotions  in  the  so-called  acts  of  private  and  social  worship 
by  meditation,  praise,  and  prayer. 

§  331,    To  profess   our  faith,  is   an   act   to  which  we   are 

impelled  by  every  right  impulse  from  within,  and 
professing       from  which  we  are  restrained  only  by  hostility  or 

a  want  of  sympathy  on  the  part  of  others.  To  re- 
frain from  an  act  so  natural  and  reasonable,  is  ignoble ;  being 
not  only  immoral  but  also  unmanly,  and  hence  an  offence 
against  conscience.  Inasmuch,  also,  as  the  motives  to  fidelity 
are  mo^t  imperative,  the  offence  is  most  serious.     It  not  only 


§332.]  SPECIAL  RELIGIOUS  DUTIES.  559 

betrays  weakness  of  principle,  but  it  tends  to  weaken  it. 
Hence  the  importance  attached  to  the  confession  of  one's  faith, 
and  the  duty  of  doing  this  at  the  exposure  or  sacrifice  even  of 
life. 

It  is  needful  for  others,  also,  that  we  not  only  confess  our 
faith,  but  that  we  seek  to  impart  it  to  others.  If  our  faith  is 
believed  to  be  important  or  essential  to  ourselves,  it  is  or  may 
be  equally  needed  by  our  fellow-men.  Hence  conscience  bids 
us  assert  and  defend  and  extend  it,  so  far  as  we  may,  with  an 
earnestness  and  zeal  which  are  proportionate  to  the  importance 
of  the  blessing  which  we  seek  to  impart.  Christianity  assumes 
that  its  truths  and  motives  are  needed  by  men  just  in  propor- 
tion to  their  indifference  or  unwillingness  to  believe  and  obey 
it.  The  duty  of  proclaiming  it  and  defending  it,  of  bringing 
men,  if  possible,  to  accept  it  as  true  and  practically  supreme, 
may  often  be  measured  by  the  intensity  of  this  very  indiffer- 
ence and  dislike. 

In  professing  and  propagating  our  faith,  as  in  the  discharge 
of  all  duties,  we  are  bound  to  use  sound  discrimination  and 
wise  expediency  :  our  love  for  the  truth  ' '  should  abound  with 
all  judgment."  We  are  neither  commanded  nor  permitted  to 
offend  against  good  manners,  or  to  be  obtrusive  or  dog- 
matical or  intolerant  or  censorious  or  impatient.  ''  The 
servant  of  the  Lord  should  not  strive,  but  be  gentle  with  all 
men,"  etc. 

§  332.'  TJie  duties  of  worship  have  immediate  respect  to  God. 
We  owe  and  pay  them  directly  to  him.  Inasmuch  J^^^^^^  ^^^ 
as  we  are  made  in  his  image  as  spiritual  beings,  worship, 
and  our  thoughts  and  feelings  are  open  to  his  inspection ; 
inasmuch  also  as  he  has  access  to  the  inmost  springs  of  our 
inner  life,  —  we  are  capable  of  direct  communication  or  spiritual 
intercourse  with  him  in  the  ways  of  praise  and  gratitude,  and 
confession  and  petition.  "  God  is  a  Spirit ;  and  they  that  wor- 
ship him  must  worship  him  m  spirit  and  in  truth ;  for  the 
Father  seeketh  «uch  to  worship  him. 


560  ELEMENTS  OF  MOBAL   SCIENCE.  [§  332. 

Worship  is  twofold,  —  the  worship  of  reverent  and  grateful 
Worship  is  recognition,  and  the  worship  of  petition.  Both  of 
twofold.  these  are  obligatory  in  external  acts,  for  somewhat 

different  reasons. 

Worship  proper,  or  reverence,  is  the  natural  reflection  or 
re-action  of  a  right-hearted  soul,  in  view  of  the  mystery  and 
majesty,  the  moral  perfection  and  the  tender  love,  of  God. 
The  exercise  of  these  emotions  has  been  explained  as  obli- 
gatory. The  expression  of  them  in  act  is  that  spontaneous 
and  natural  tribute  to  God  as  we  think  of  him  and  feel  towards 
him,  which  no  right-hearted  person  would  choose  to  withhold, 
or  fail  to  express.  Whether  the  utterance  be  in  private,  in  the 
seclusion  of  personal  communion  with  the  Father  who  sceth  in 
secret ;  or  in  public,  under  the  inspiration  of  social  song  and 
praise,  —  worship  is  a  duty,  and  none  the  less  because  it  is  a 
privilege  from  which  the  right-hearted  man  cannot  refrain. 
The  cant  and  formalism  which  often  characterize  the  worship 
of  the  uncultivated  in  no  sense  excuse,  how  far  soever  they 
may  explain,  the  indifference  or  contempt  of  the  over-cultured 
practical  atheist,  whether  he  worships  appetite  or  culture  or 
himself  in  the  place  of  the  F'ather  of  his  spirit.  Private 
worship  is  a  simple  due  which  every  man  is  impelled  to  render 
to  God. 

Social  worship  is  equally  spontaneous  from  men  as  members 
Social  wor-  ^^  ^  Community  who  recognize  their  common  re- 
siiipandthe  lations  to  God,  and  thereby  recognize  one  another 
as  his  creatures  and  children.  Men  who  are  right- 
hearted  toward  themselves  and  toward  one  another  can  never 
join  hands  in  brotherhood  without  spontaneously  lifting  them 
to  heaven,  and  uttering  the  common  prayer,  ''  Our  Father  who 
art  in  heaven.  Hallowed  be  thy  name.'*  The  instant  they  do 
this,  they  become  a  church  in  spirit ;  and,  recognizing  the  new 
social  bond  that  holds  them  together,  they  add  to  their  prayer, 
''  Thy  kingdom  come."  This  involves  a  recognition  of  the 
church  in  some  sort,  or  an  organized  religious  community,  with 


§332.]  SPECIAL  RELIGIOUS  DUTIES.  561 

institutions  and  days  and  seasons  for  worship  ;  all  of  which,  if 
not  enforced  by  any  positive  revelation  or  authority,  would 
come  into  being  by  the  spontaneous  impulses  of  a  common 
relationship  to  God.^ 

We  do  not  discuss  here  the  nature  or  authority  of  the  Chris- 
tian Church,  nor  the  obligation  to  observe  the  Lord's  Day,  nor 
the  sacredness  or  authority  of  any  other  scriptural  institution  : 
we  simply  assert  the  duty  of  social  worship  as  enforced  by 
every  man's  conscience  when  confronted  with  the  sight  or  pres- 
ence of  God. 

The  expression  of  the  religious  emotions  in  acts  and  institu- 
tutions  of  worship  has  a  most  important  indirect  importance 
influence  on  the  future  of  an  individual  and  the  ^  ^^^  *^* 
community.  This  circumstance  enhances  the  obligation  to  the 
performance  of  this  class  of  duties.  The  neglect  or  non- 
exercise  of  outward  religious  manifestations  involves  sloth  and 
torpor  in  the  sensibilities  themselves.  If  worship  and  gratitude 
are  withheld,  the  sensual  and  selfish  impulses  and  emotions 
which  these  higher  impulses  are  fitted  to  exclude  and  restrain 
are  certain  to  control  the  man.  They  connect  themselves  with 
all  the  associations  and  actions.  They  are  inwrought  into  the 
habits,  and  attain  an  unnatural  strength  and  predominance ; 
while  the  superior  impulses  are  dwarfed  in  their  capacity,  or 
are  ignominiously  overlooked  and  neglected.  If  nothing  worse 
follows,  the  man  disuses  his  noblest  feelings ;  and  the  capacity 
to  call  them  into  quick  and  active  exercise  dwindles  into  feeble- 
ness. Such  a  man  practically  renounces  his  birthright,  by  fail- 
ing, by  acts  and  habits  of  worship,  to  recognize  his  inheritance 
of  immortality  and  his  kinship  with  God. 

To  worship  in  the  forms  of  praise  and  gratitude,  is  as  natural 
for  man  as  it  is  to  breathe.     In  this  natural  worship  as  a  senti- 

1  This  obligation  involves  in  some  sense  the  recognition  of  the  Church 
as  an  organized  institution,  which  has  equal  importance  and  permanence 
with  the  family  and  the  state,  but  which,  for  obvious  reasons,  we  do  not 
include  within  the  plan  of  this  treatise. 


662  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL  SCIENCE.  [§  333. 

ment,  and  as  expressed  by  word  or  act,  there  is  not  of  necessity 
any  virtue.  To  be  a  duty,  it  must  have  an  ethical  or  spiritual 
significance,  and  be  sustained  by  a  righteous  character  and  life. 
Of  such  a  life,  such  worship  is  the  bright  and  consummate 
flower.  In  every  case,  however,  the  neglect  of  worship  as  felt 
or  expressed  is  a  token  of  moral  evil,  and  a  certain  method  of 
confirming  such  evil. 

§  333.  By  prayer,  in  the  special  sense  of  the  word,  we  mean 
Of  worship  petition  for  spiritual  or  physical  benefits.  The  im- 
as  prayer.  pulse  to  ask  for  benefits  of  both  kinds  is  strong  in 
the  uncultured  mind ;  and  it  is  sometimes  irresistible,  under  the 
experience  of  a  great  necessity,  even  with  those  who  persuade 
themselves  that  to  ask,  hoping  to  receive  any  thing  of  God,  is 
irrational  and  unscientific.  In  cooler  moments,  however,  and 
under  the  pressure  of  scientific  discovery,  the  reign  of  law 
seems  to  threaten  to  take  complete  possession  of  the  universe 
of  matter  and  of  spirit,  and  to  subject  every  event  to  a  rigid 
necessity  which  its  Author  can  not  or  will  not  break.  Men 
usually  find  less  difficulty  in  believing  that  God  is  able  to  give 
good  spiritual  gifts  to  those  who  ask  him,  than  that  he  can 
direct  material  agencies  to  special  issues  in  answer  to  petitions 
from  men.  If  we  consider  the  two  kinds  of  benefits  apart,  we 
find  that  under  spiritual  benefits  are  comprehended  all  conceiv- 
«    ..-.i.x    .  able  effects  in  the  human  spirit,  —  the  intellectual 

Possibility  of  ^ 

spiritual  and  emotional  as  truly  as  the  ethical  and  reUgious. 
nfluences.  Effects  of  this  sort,  to  the  ordinary  consciousness, 
seem  to  obey  no  law :  they  are  spontaneous  if  not  capricious. 
Excepting  the  voluntary,  which  are  designedly  removed  from 
any  influence  or  control  on  the  part  of  God,  the  remainder  are 
not  so  obviously  controlled  by  necessary  agencies  as  to  exclude 
the  control  and  direction  of  God  in  answer  to  the  petitions 
of  men.  Many  persons  who  cannot  believe  that  the  petitions  of 
men  can  have  any  mfluence  withm  the  domani  of  matter  will 
consent  that  God  can  move  on  the  spirit  of  man  without  inter- 
fering with  the  independence  of  the  individual  will  or  the  fixed- 


§333.]  SPECIAL  BELIGI0U8  DUTIES.  563 

ness  of  spiritual  laws.  The  magic  sympathy  and  power  which 
one  person  exerts  over  another,  the  strange  likings  and  mislik- 
ings  which  often  appear  in  human  affections,  and  awaken  unex- 
pected impulses  to  action,  the  singular  and  mysterious  invasion 
of  unanticipated  images  and  thoughts,  suggest  many  reasons 
why  God  might  be  supposed  to  inspire  and  move  to  manifold 
thoughts  and  purposes  such  as,  without  such  aid  or  influence, 
would  never  be  experienced.  For  these  reasons,  most  scientific 
theists  will  consent  that  God  may  possibly  answer  the  petitions 
of  men  by  spiritual  aid  and  blessing. 

But  when   the   question   concerns   physical   effects   or  phe- 
nomena, the  objections,  at  first  thought,   seem  to 

Is  prayer  a 
be  insuperable.     Material  forces  are  fixed  m  their  physical 

operation  by  unchanging  laws :  they  are  so  corre-  !?/^5®^ 
lated  to  one  another,  and  (so  to  speak)  so  constantly 
proceeding  in  and  out  from  one  another,  that  to  suppose  the 
quantity  of  force  to  be  changed  an  iota,  or  a  single  law  to  be 
slighted  or  set  aside,  is  to  abandon  science,  and  to  render  expe- 
rience impossible.  Prayer  that  is  petition,  it  is  argued,  cannot 
be  a  physical  force ;  that  is,  as  the  proposition  is  understood, 
prayer  cannot  produce  or  prevent  the  occurrence  of  any  event 
to  which  physical  agencies  are  proximate.  The  phrase  "physi- 
cal force"  when  used  in  such  a  connection  is  obviously  ambigu- 
ous. It  may  mean  a  force  which  is  itself  only  physical,  or  it 
may  signify  a  force  which  makes  itself  manifest  or  effective  by 
changes  and  effects  that  are  only  material.  Thinking  or  feel- 
ing or  choice,  as  exercised  by  men,  except  on  the  theory  of  the 
materialist,  are  not  physical  but  psychical  forces ;  and  yet,  in 
the  daily  experience  of  myriads  of  human  beings,  they  control 
and  alter  manifold  physical  phenomena,  so  far  at  least  as  the 
movements  of  both  mind  and  body  are  concerned.  They  dis- 
turb and  alter  the  correlations  of  purely  physical  agents,  evok- 
ing agencies  which  without  them  would  never  have  appeared, 
and  preventing  others  from  occurring.  More  than  this  is  true : 
not  only  do  they  affect  physical  phenomena  in  hum^p  and 


664  ELEMENTS  OF  MORAL   SCIENCE.  [§  334. 

animal  bodies,  but  through  them  they  alter  the  very  "  course 
of  nature  "  itself  by  changes  in  forests  and  streams  ;  drying  or 
flooding  fertile  plains,  one  or  both,  by  destroying  villages,  and 
sweeping  cities  into  the  sea. 

If  a  spiritual  force,  when  intimately  connected  with  matter, 
Possible  roia-  Can  accomplish  physical  changes  like  these,  what 
tiTforcM^***  shall  we  say  of  the  capacity  of  the  Eternal  Spirit 
and  laws  of  to  effect  many  more  and  vastly  greater  changes,  if 
nature.  indeed  he  is  not  more  nearly  related  to  the  forces 

of  nature  than  the  human  spirit  is  to  the  body  ?  He  would  be 
a  rash  man  who  would  deny  that  He  who  created  and  upholds 
these  forces  by  his  immanent  and  upholding  power,  may  so 
manifest,  direct,  and  combine  them  as  to  accomplish  any  physi- 
cal effect  which  he  pleases,  in  answer  to  prayer,  in  entire  con- 
sistency with  the  laws  which  he  has  imposed  upon  them. 

It  is  important,  however,  to  distinguish  the  existence  of  a 
force  and  its  laws,  from  the  occurrence  of  a  phenomenon  or  the 
production  of  an  effect.  We  might  even  assert,  that  though 
the  forces  of  the  physical  universe  and  their  laws  have  never 
changed  from  the  beginning,  and  even  while  not  a  particle  of 
matter  has  been  destroyed,  the  effect  of  these  forces  in  their 
combined  action  has  never  been  in  any  two  instants  precisely 
the  same.  Forces  and  laws  may  continually  repeat  themselves, 
and  the  phenomena  which  constitute  these  effects  may  never 
be  alike.  The  fixedness  of  the  agencies  which  are  employed 
by  God  in  the  conduct  of  the  universe  commands  the  confidence 
of  men.  The  variety  of  the  results,  and  the  wisdom  manifested 
in  their  production,  compel  their  admiration. 

§  334.  There  is  no  condition  of  life,  and  no  circumstances, 
under  which  it  is  not  the  duty  of  men  to  ask  for  the 

Prayer  ap- 
propriate to     benefits  which  they  desire,  hoping  to  receive  them. 

every  condi-     player  in  the  form  of  petition,  as  well  as  in  the 

tion  of  life.  *^  '■  ' 

form  of  worship,  is  also  a  most  important  duty. 

The  arrangement  by  which  the  reception  of  blessings  of  every 

sort  is  made  dependent  upon  prayer  is  most  worthy  of  God,  and 


§  334.]  SPECIAL  BELIGI0U8  DUTIES.  565 

most  beneficent  to  man.  It  brings  and  holds  man  to  his  appro- 
priate place,  with  respect  to  his  Father  in  heaven,  in  the  con- 
stant recognition  of  his  dependence,  in  gratitude  for  favors 
received,  in  hope  that  what  he  seeks  may  be  gained  for  the 
asking,  and  in  filial  submission  to  the  divine  wisdom  should  the 
blessing  be  denied. 

Where  the  last  element  is  not  present,  the  true  spirit  of 
prayer  is  absent.  Dictation  to  the  Supreme,  under  s^ij^issi 
the  fair  guise  of  what  is  called  importunity,  is  in-  essential  to 
compatible  with  the  temper  which  qualifies  man  to  ^''*^®'* 
pray  at  all.  Confidence  that  the  particular  blessing  asked  for 
will  be  given,  though  disguised  under  the  name  of  the  assurance 
of  faith,  goes  beyond  the  terms  of  any  promise  and  the  reason- 
ableness of  any  inference.  Earnestness,  minuteness,  fervor, 
frequency  in  petitions,  are  all  enforced  by  nature  and  the  Scrip- 
tures ;  but  dictation  and  assurance  are  most  offensive  to  the 
conscience,  and  may  become  insidious  and  degrading  sins. 
All  needed  rules  for  prayer  are  provided ;  and  every  diflSculty 
is  met  by  the  spirit  of  the  direction,  "  When  ye  pray,  say.  Our 
Father  who  art  in  heaven."  The  authority  for  employing  peti- 
tions for  good  is  ample  in  the  words :  "If  ye  then,  being  evil, 
know  how  to  give  good  gifts  unto  your  children,  how  much 
more  shall  your  Father  which  is  in  heaven  give  good  things  to 
them  that  ask  him  ?  " 

"  More  things  are  wrought  by  prayer 
Than  this  world  dreams  of.    Wherefore  let  thy  voice 
Rise  like  a  fountain,  both  by  night  and  day; 
For  what  are  men  better  than  sheep  or  goats, 
That  nourish  a  blind  life  within  the  brain, 
If,  knowing  God,  they  lift  not  hands  of  prayer. 
Both  for  themselves  and  those  who  call  them  friends  ? 
For  so  the  whole  round  earth  is  every  way 
Bound  by  gold  chains  about  the  feet  of  God." 

Tennyson. 


INDEX 


[the  figuees  eefer  to  the  pages.] 


Absolute,  influences  of  belief  in,  545. 

Action,  defined,  3 ;  includes  character  and 
habits,  3 ;  wide  range  of,  53. 

Actions,  external,  chapter  on,  188-207;  defi- 
nition of,  189-190 ;  purposes  executed  by, 
190;  made  more  energetic  by,  191-192; 
confirmed  into  habits  by,  192 ;  rules  for, 
192;  some  invariably  right,  193-194;  rela- 
tion of,  to  manners,  194;  one  morally 
wrong  may  be  right,  213. 

Adam,  William,  on  freedom  of  will,  and 
science  of  history,  69. 

Affections,  disinterested,  apparent  excep- 
tion to  law  of  desire,  32-34 ;  duty  of,  how 
related  to  law  of  benevolence,  385-388; 
special  personal,  chapter  on,  444-463;  in 
what  sense  natural,  444 ;  enforced  by  love, 
452;  natural  religious,  544. 

Agnosticism,  influence  of  belief  in,  556. 

Alexander,  J.  W.,  on  love  of  self,  35,  37. 

Altruism,  disinterested  affection,  how  re- 
lated to,  34;  development  of,  122-123; 
meaning  of,  378 ;  nature  of,  429-430. 

Animals,  chapter  on  duties  to,  529-538;  rea- 
sons for  duties  to,  529;  discipline  involved 
by,  530-531 ;  not  moral,  531 ;  duty  of  train- 
ing of,  531-532 ;  place  of,  subordinate,  532 ; 
attitude  of  man  towards,  533-538. 

Antigone,  daring  of,  228. 

Antinomy  between  science  and  literature, 
75. 

Antipathy,  duties  relating  to,  453-455. 

Appetite,  how  affected  by  indulgence,  52; 
relation  of,  to  will,  94;  chapter  on,  325- 
344 ;  characterization  of,  325 ;  which  con- 
trollable, 325-326;  compared  with  other 
sensibilities,  326-327;  relation  of  to  higher 
enjoyments,  327 ;  law  of  duty  respecting, 
327;  indulgence  of,  how  related  to  the 
future,  328;  relation  of,  to  law  of  habit, 
328-329;  alleged  dignity  and  rights  of, 
329-330;  social  aspects  of,  332-333;  re- 
straints of,  383-335. 

Aristotle,  Trendelenburg's  criticism  of, 
171 ;  ethics  of,  291 ;  on  justice,  415. 

Arnold,  Edwin,  on  self-sacrifice,  274. 

Arnold,  Thomas,  on  prayer  and  benevo- 
lence, 437. 


Asceticism,  how  related  to  Christianity, 
322;  criticism  of,  322-324;  sentimentalism 
a  species  of,  361 ;  doctrine  of,  how  related 
to  special  personal  affections,  448. 

Associations,  influence  of,  on  desire,  31. 

Associationalist,  theory  of,  respecting  artifi- 
cial sensibilities,  40 ;  on  nature  of  the  will, 
61;  on  origin  of  moral  law,  120. 

Atheism,  influence  of  belief  in,  556. 

Athenian  theory  of  state,  494. 

Attention,  relation  of,  to  sensibility,  21,  50. 

Aurelius,  Marcus,  on  inequalities  of  man's 
condition,  384. 

Austin  on  nature  of  obligation,  159. 

Authority,  mercenary  character  of,  547-548. 

Authority  of  state,  duty  of  recognition  of, 
513. 

Bagehot,  Walter,  on  culture  of  child  and 
infant  race,  220. 

Bain,  Alexander,  on  nature  of  will,  61 ;  use 
of  will,  90;  on  origin  of  moral  distinc- 
tions, 121. 

Beneficence,  chapter  on  duties  of,  428-443; 
nature  of,  428 ;  duties  of,  denied,  429. 

Benevolence,  unselfishness  of,  169-170;  rec- 
ognizes a  difference  in  men,  380;  relation 
of,  to  special  duties,  381 ;  reasons  for  hold- 
ing to  law  of,  382-385 ;  objections  to,  385- 
392;  summary  of  doctrine  of,  392-393; 
special  foundation  of,  contrasted  witli 
general  duties,  393-394;  how  related  to 
special  personal  affections,  447-451. 

Bentham,  Jeremy,  on  nature  of  pleasure, 
45 ;  on  utility,  48. 

Betrothal,  conditions  of,  474-475;  binding 
character  of  vows  of,  475-476. 

Brown,  John,  on  self-love,  38. 

Brown,  Dr.  Thomas,  on  division  of  facul- 
ties, 59;  on  nature  of  the  will,  61;  on 
nature  of  obligation,  160. 

Brown,  Sir  Thomas,  on  heart  of  man,  50; 
on  nature  of  will,  61. 

Buckle,  H.  T.,  on  freedom  of  will,  and  sci- 
ence of  history,  69. 

Bunyan,  John,  quotation  from  Froude's 
life  of,  162. 

Burke,  on  law  of  honor,  242. 

667 


568 


INDEX. 


BnrQB,  on  sexual  vice,  335. 

Butler,  BiBhop,  on  love  of  neighbor,  34,  37, 
385 ;  on  distinction  between  habits,  52 ;  on 
necessity  of  moral  trial,  110;  on  object  of 
faculty  of  moral  discernment,  140;  on 
perception  of  right  and  wrong,  141,  142; 
on  nature  of  moral  impulse,  174;  ethical 
theory  of,  184;  moral  faculty  not  analyzed 
by,  184 ;  defects  of  theory  of,  185 ;  theory 
of,  on  final  cause,  185;  on  ethical  emo- 
tions, 185;  Martineau's  criticism  of,  186; 
on  relation  of  affections  to  conscience,  209; 
on  universality  of  profession  of  virtue, 
230;  on  nature  of  conscience,  246;  on 
supremacy  of  conscience,  252 ;  on  relation 
of  self-love  to  ethical  motives,  270;  on 
morality  of  Old  Testament,  297 ;  on  benev- 
olence, 385;  on  resentment,  456. 

Calderwood,  on  affections  and  desires,  33; 
on  moral  reason,  136. 

Candor,  duty  of,  555. 

Carpenter,  W.  B.,  definition  of  will,  90. 

Carrau,  Ludovic,  on  utilitarianism,  30;  on 
relation  of  rights  to  duties,  399. 

Casuistry,  defined,  6,  7;  relation  of,  to  eth- 
ics, 10-;  profession  of,  260;  concerned 
with  effects  of  actions,  263. 

Categories  of  thought,  what  assumed  in 
explaining  moral  relations,  150. 

Categorical  imperative,  Kant's  theory  of, 
136;  relation  of  theory  of,  to  moral  sense, 
136;  to  sensibility,  137;  relation  of,  to 
self-inspection,  145;  opposed  by  Kant  to 
hypothetical  imperative,  159;  theory  of, 
disseminated  by  Coleridge,  162 ;  relation 
of  Clarke,  Price,  and  Reid  to,  162. 

Causation,  relation  of,  to  freedom  of  will, 
65,  66;  difference  between  law  and  fact 
of,  66;  apprehension  of,  how  acquired, 
87 ;  relation  of,  to  activities  of  mind  and 
heart,  101, 110. 

Cerebralists  on  nature  of  the  will,  61. 

Character,  definition  of,  61,  96;  possible 
without  will,  61;  how  related  to  predic- 
tions of  conduct,  68,  69;  as  natural  and 
voluntary,  chapter  on,  103-111 ;  voluntary 
and  involuntary,  104;  elements  cf,  how 
related,  104, 110;  relation  of,  to  intensity 
of  will,  106;  how  related  to  theory  that 
disposition  is  habit,  106;  moral  responsi- 
bility for,  108;  changes  and  cultures  of, 
109;  relation  of,  to  opinions,  199;  good 
of,  always  supreme,  315-318;  perfection 
of,  how  obtained,  382,  383. 

Charity,  duty  of,  556, 

Charnock,  Stephen,  on  origin  of  moral  dis- 
tinctions, 126. 

Children,  duty  of,  to  parents,  485-486. 

Chinese,  manners  of,  195. 

Choice,  appellations  for,  57 ;  results  of,  92- 
93;  within  the  soul,  93;  upon  the  emo- 
tions, 93-94;  those  that  are  speedily  exe- 
cuted, 94-95 ;  that  are  longer  in  execution, 
95 ;  examples,  95 ;  of  ideal  excellence,  96 ; 
affecting  character,  96;  effect  of,  why 
called  state,  96;  those  that  need  no  repe- 
tition, 97;  that  are  repeated,  97-98;  state 
of,  tends  to  perpetuity,  98;  Goethe  on 
effect  of  continuance  in,  99;  what  objects 
of  moral  approval  and  disapproval,  100; 
nature  of  state  of,  1U5;  state  of,  denied 
by  Hazard,  106. 


Christian  theory  of  morals,  chapter  on,  266- 
300;  interest  of  moral  science  in,  266; 
holds  that  moral  distinctions  pertain  to 
the  intentions  as  expressing  the  charac- 
ter, 268;  these  manifested  in  action,  268; 
relation  of,  to  divine  command,  269;  to 
love  of  happiness,  270 ;  unselfishness  of, 
271;  theory  of,  respecting  benevolence, 
272-276;  teaching  of,  respecting  external 
actions,  279 ;  and  private  judgment,  279- 
280 ;  and  the  purposes,  281 ;  how  related 
to  progress,  281-284 ;  to  society,  284 ;  in- 
struction, how  given  by,  285;  charged 
with  weakness,  286-287;  attitude  of, 
towards  property  and  civil  government, 
288-290,  366-367 ;  criticised  by  J.  S.  Mill, 
289-290;  alleged  impracticability  of ,  290- 
291 ;  contrasted  with  other  systems,  291 ; 
origin  of,  292;  relation  of,  to  ethics  of 
Old  Testament,  292-295. 

Christianity,  faith  in,  how  promoted,  16,  17; 
noblest  feature  of  ethics  of,  205;  how 
related  to  manners,  207 ;  types  of  benev- 
olence of,  276;  justice  according  to,  276; 
individual,  how  estimated  by,  276-278; 
justice  and  veracity  enforced  by,  277; 
sense  of  honor,  how  affected  by,  277 ;  sex- 
ual purity,  how  estimated  by,  278;  influ- 
ence of,  on  position  of  woman,  463;  the- 
ory of,  on  penal  administration,  510,  511 ; 
influence  of  belief  in,  556. 

Circumstances,  definition  of,  305. 

Claims,  duties  of,  512-523. 

Citizen,  moral  nature  of,  398;  relation  of, 
to  duties,  400 ;  to  rights,  400. 

Clarke,  ethical  theory  of,  criticised  by  War- 
burton,  161;  on  final  cause  as  related  to 
ethics,  185. 

Clifford,  on  origin  of  moral  distinctions, 
121. 

Cobbe,  F.  W.,  relation  of,  to  Kant,  137;  on 
relation  of  morality  to  religion,  270. 

Codes,  individual,  197;  objection  to,  197- 
198. 

Coleridge,  on  conscience,  15,  251 ;  influence 
of,  in  disseminating  theory  of  Kant,  162 ; 
on  tolerance,  265;  on  love,  462;  on  duty 
to  animals,  529. 

Collins,  Antony,  on  nature  of  the  will,  61 ; 
defines  freedom  of  will,  78. 

Community,  influences  of,  on  questions  of 
duty,  201,  202;  organization  of,  487. 

Comte,  Auguste,  on  freedom  of  will,  and 
science  of  history,  69. 

Condition,  perfection  of,  how  obtained,  382- 
383. 

Conscience,  nature  of,  8;  Martineau's  defi- 
nition of,  187;  chapter  on,  243-259;  how 
used,  243-244;  limited  to  intellect  and 
sensibility,  245-246;  applied  to  their 
products,  246-247;  how  far  fallible,  247- 
249;  as  sensibility,  249-250;  capacity  of, 
for  cultivation,  250-251 ;  indestructibility 
of,  251 ;  reformation  of,  251-252 ;  sujjrem- 
Rcy  of,  252;  should  it  always  be  obeyed? 
253-254;  sometimes  perverted,  255;  how 
misled,  255-256;  intuitive  tact  of,  258- 
259;  chapter  on  cases,  200-265;  cases  of, 
defined,  260;  when  serious,  202-263. 

Consciousness,  attests  author's  analysis  of 
emotion  and  desire,  27;  and  nature  of 
will,  62;  distinguishes  volitions  from  de- 
sires and  emotions,  63;  and  attests  reality 


INDEX. 


569 


of  volition,  84;  objection,  86;  how  related 
to  conception  of  power,  87 ;  and  to  act  of 
ciioice,  92;  and  to  origin  of  moral  rela- 
tions, 138 ;  appeal  to,  settles  question  be- 
tween moral  theories,  139;  attitude  of, 
towards  intuitional  theory,  172,  173 ;  final 
stage  in  development  of,  221;  how  related 
to  moral  functions,  245. 

Consequences,  necessity  of  calculating,  201 ; 
relation  of  benevolence  to  calculation  of, 
389-390. 

Convictions,  how  distinguished  from  prin- 
ciples, 349. 

Co-operation,  tendency  towards,  in  ethical 
theories,  391-392;  necessity  of,  432-434; 
relation  of,  to  communism,  434-435. 

Cudworth,  Ralph,  on  moral  reason,  136. 

Culverwell,  Nathanael,  on  origin  of  moral 
distinctions,  126. 

Cumberland,  Richard,  on  origin  of  moral 
distinctions,  125. 

Darwin,  Charles,  on  origin  of  moral  dis- 
tinctions, 121. 

De  Birau  on  causation,  87. 

Defence,  of  soil,  duty  of,  497;  of  govern- 
ment, duty  of,  515. 

Demerit,  sense  of,  explained,  163;  affirm- 
able  of  actions  and  feelings,  164. 

Design,  category  of,  how  related  to  moral 
intuition,  173 ;  relation  of,  to  ethics,  204. 

Desire,  name  for  act  of  sensibility,  25 ;  how 
related  to  sensibility,  25;  object  of,  26; 
erroneous  use  of,  27 ;  author's  analysis  of, 
attested  by  consciousness,  27-28;  objec- 
tions to  author's  view  of ,  30-32;  simple 
and  complex,  38;  primary  and  secondary, 
39;  natural  and  acquired  diversities  of, 
55 ;  terms  for,  63. 

Development,  ethical,  of  individuals,  218- 
220;  how  related  to  social  influences,  221. 

Disposition  as  related  to  will,  105;  as  natu- 
ral and  moral,  105 ;  how  related  to  habit, 
106-107;  when  right  or  wrong,  lOS. 

Divorce,  character  of,  in  earlier  times,  479 ; 
relation  of,  to  modern  life,  480-481. 

Draper,  J.  W.,  on  freedom  of  will,  and  sci- 
ence of  history,  69. 

Drinks,  intoxicating,  responsibility  for  in- 
dulgence in,  331 ;  discussion  of  use  of,  336, 
337, 

Duty,  provisional  definition  of,  3;  grounds 
for  believing  in,  4-5 ;  relation  of  study  of, 
to  public  life,  11-12;  questions  of,  dis- 
cerned by  educated  men,  12;  belief  in, 
how  affected  by  moral  science,  13 ;  answer 
to  practical  questions  of,  14;  importance 
of  standard  of,  14-15 ;  relation  of  revela- 
tion to  science  of,  15-16 ;  ideal  of,  146 ;  T. 
H.  Green,  William  George  Ward,  J.  P. 
Newman,  Henry  Wace,  and  James  Mar- 
tineau,  on  relation  of  faith  in,  to  theism, 
151 ;  relation  of  faith  in,  to  spiritual  meta- 
physics, 151 ;  law  of,  how  related  to  will 
of  God,  157,  163;  chapter  on  conflict  of, 
260-265 ;  difficult  questions  of,  262 ;  chap- 
ter on  classification  of,  303-311 ;  rules  of, 
how  related  to  circumstances,  305 ;  classi- 
fication of,  308-309;  objections,  309-310; 
of  man  to  himself,  chapter  on,  312-324; 
fundamental  principle  of,  312;  to  our- 
selves, what?  314-315;  how  related  to 
good  of  character  and  condition,  315-320; 


to  prudence,  320;  how  affected  by  habit, 
320-321 ;  how  designated,  321 ;  respecting 
appetites  and  life,  chapter  on,  325-344; 
law  of,  respecting  indulgence  of  appetites, 
326;  and  intoxicating  liquors,  336-337; 
and  health  and  life,  338-343;  to  ourselves 
respecting  intellect,  chapter  on,  345-350; 
of  cultivating  the  intellect,  345;  how  en- 
forced, 346-347;  special  sphere  of,  for 
each  individual,  347-348;  relation  of  com- 
munity to,  348;  respecting  ethical  truth, 
349 ;  to  ourselves  relating  to  feelings  and 
habits,  chapter  on,  351-361;  of  man  to 
himself,  respecting  wants,  rights,  and 
moral  claims,  chapter  on,  362-373;  how 
related  to  property,  364-367 ;  to  defence  of 
rights,  368-371;  of  self-respect,  371-373; 
of  man  to  liis  fellow-men,  chapter  on,  374- 
395;  on  what  founded,  374;  how  divided, 
374 ;  how  related  to  benevolence,  376 ;  how 
related  to  moral  claims,  398,400;  respect- 


ing physical  world,  chapter  on,  539-542 
543. 


to 


chapter  on,  543-552;  ground  of, 


D wight,  Dr.,  defines  utility,  48;  on  calcu- 
lating consequences,  201;  on  calculating 
consequences,  and   law  of   benevolence. 


Edwards,  Jonathan,  on  love  of  self  and  of 
God,  35;  on  undue  self-love,  37;  on  di- 
vision of  faculties,  58 ;  defines  free  will, 
78;  on  distinction  between  natural  and 
moral  ability,  81 ;  argues  against  infinite 
series,  82 ;  on  justice,  415. 

Elective  affinities,  doctrine  of,  448,  470. 

Eliot,  George,  on  effects  of  choice,  or  good 
or  evil,  353. 

Elizabeth  signing  death-warrant  of  Mary, 
97. 

Emotion,  name  for  act  of  sensibility,  25; 
how  related  to  exercise  of  sensibility,  25 ; 
natural,  contrasted  with  those  penetrated 
by  will,  34;  simple  and  complex,  38;  pri- 
mary and  secondary,  39 ;  passive,  49 ;  de- 
pendent on  attention,  50;  capacity  for, 
how  affected  by  repetition,  50;  natural 
and  acquired  diversities  of,  55;  terms  for, 
63 ;  laws  of,  necessary,  97 ;  moral  charac- 
ter of  states  of,  106 ;  of  acts  of,  140 ;  place 
of,  in  ethical  theory,  152 ;  moral  impor- 
tance of,  317 ;  subjective  effects  of,  351 ; 
duty  of  control  of,  351 ;  general  rule  in 
respect  to,  352;  importance  of,  when  not 
expressed,  353-354;  relation  of,  to  inner 
habits,  354-359;  how  cultivated,  354;  as- 
ceticism of,  360-361. 

England,  influence  of  conquests  of,  500. 

Ethical  definitions,  chapter  on  diversity  of, 
208-216. 

Ethical  emotions,  permanence  and  uniform- 
ity of,  216;  how  related  to  moral  actions, 
249-250. 

Ethics,  defined,  6;  includes  casuistry,  6-7 ; 
relation  of,  to  moral  science,  10;  to  sci- 
ence of  rights,  10;  to  casuistry,  10;  to 
Christianity,  10 ;  theism  demanded  by,  151 ; 
aesthetic  quality  in,  205;  various  theories 
of,  211,  212;  teachings  of  Christian  theory 
of,  299;  how  related  to  voluntary  pur- 
poses, 304-305 ;  codes  of,  based  on  induc- 
tion, 306;  require  tact,  307. 

Evolution,  on  nature  of  will,  61 ;  relation  of, 


670 


INDEX, 


to   character,  101;   tendency  of   ethical 

theories  of,  276-278. 

Evolutionist,  on  nature  of  the  will,  62;  de- 
nies freedom  of  will,  73;  on  origin  of 
moral  distinctions,  120;  relation  of  ethical 
theory  of,  to  social  theory,  122;  criticism 
of  ethical  theory  of,  124;  a  priori  meta- 
physics of,  151. 

Extra-ethical  forces,  enumeration  of,  223- 
224 ;  how  related  to  ethical  judgments  and 
emotions,  224 ;  and  intuitional  power,  225 ; 
to  ethical  motives,  226;  and  emotions, 
227-229;  principles  of  duty,  how  affected 
by,  229-231;  ethical  standards,  how  af- 
fected by,  231-232. 

Faith,  duties  of,  554;  duty  in  revision  of, 
555 ;  duty  of  profession  of,  558-559. 

Family,  moral  influence  of,  223-224;  chap- 
ter on  duties  to,  464-486 ;  ground  of  duties 
to,  465-471 ;  authority  implied  by,  471-472 ; 
Btate  anticipated  by,  471-472 ;  reward  and 
punishment  impUed  in,  472-473;  impor- 
tant, how,  473. 

FaUlist,  how  distinguished  by  Mill  from 
necessitarian,  81. 

Fear,  common  to  coward  and  brave,  103. 

Feeling,  relation  of,  to  moral  nature,  20; 
appellations  for,  25 ;  object  of,  26 ;  analy- 
Bis  of,  41;  correct  psychology  presup- 
posed by,  42;  rules  for,  192;  objections 
to  use  ot,  in  obtaining  ethical  rules,  308. 

Ferrier,  James,  on  freedom  of  will,  and  sci- 
ence of  history,  69. 

Fichte,  J.  Or.,  quotations  from  journal  of, 
179;  on  relation  between  virtue  and  liap- 
piness,  271. 

Final  cause,  relation  of,  to  free  will,  66;  re- 
lation of,  to  ethical  theories,  150. 

Fittke,  John,  on  nature  of  will,  61 ;  on  free 
will,  and  science  of  history,  69;  on  origin 
of  moral  distinctions,  121. 

Foreknowledge  of  God,  and  freedom  of  will, 
70-72. 

Forgiveness,  duty  of,  458-459 ;  influence  of 
belief  in  God  as  exercising,  549-550. 

Foster,  John,  on  decision  of  character,  95. 

Free  love,  doctrine  of,  470 ;  pernicious  char- 
acter of,  478. 

French  Republicans,  doctrine  of,  on  special 
personal  affections,  448. 

Friendship,  duty  of,  459-460;  nature  of, 
460;  between  man  and  woman,  461-462; 
how  related  to  love,  462;  among  the 
ancients,  462. 

Froude,  J.  A.,  on  freedom  of  will,  and  sci- 
ence of  history,  69;  on  nature  of  obliga- 
tion, 162. 

Gambling,  habit  of,  355-358 ;  In  bUBineBB,356. 

Godwin,  William,  on  justice,  415. 

Goethe  on  effects  of  choice,  98. 

Good,  greatest  apparent,  81;  moral  good, 
how  defined,  144;  relation  of,  to  natural, 
144;  to  processes  of  reflection,  144;  high- 
est, how  possible,  375-376 ;  relativeca  pa- 
city  of  man  for,  377. 

Gratitude,  duty  of,  and  law  of  benevolence, 
385-388 ;  duty  of,  455,  456. 

Greece,  influence  of  conquests  of,  499. 

Green,  T.  H.,  on  relation  of  faith  in  duty 
to  theism,  151. 

Growth,  activity  of,  how  conditioned,  346. 


Habit,  Butler  on,  52;  influence  of,  110;  how 
related  to  duties  to  ourselves,  320,  321 ;  to 
feelings,  354,  359. 

Hamilton,  Sir  William,  classification  of 
sensibilities,  44;  on  classification  of  the 
faculties  of  the  soul,  59;  on  inconceiva- 
bility of  free  will,  65;  on  moral  reason, 
136. 

Happiness,  desire  of,  how  related  to  special 
desires,  35-36 ;  rational,  36;  never  a  mo- 
tive, 37;  misnamed  self-love,  37;  desire 
of,  how  related  to  moral  impulse,  169; 
place  of,  in  ethical  theory  of  Kant,  170; 
desire  of,  how  related  to  intuitional  the- 
ory, 178;  moral  character  of  desire  of, 
178;  Lotze  on  Kant's  theory  of,  179; 
greatest  amount  of,  to  greatest  number, 
how  related  to  law  of  benevolence,  391. 

Hartley,  on  relation  between  association 
and  cerebrum,  122. 

Hazard,  R.,  denies  possibility  of  permanent 
state  of  will,  106. 

Hedonist,  theory  of,  criticised  by  Ueber- 
weg,  179. 

Help,  cases  of  need  of,  432-440. 

Herbart,  on  moral  sense,  136 ;  on  beauty  of 
virtue,  206. 

Heredity,  relation  of,  to  character,  101. 

Hickok,  Laurens  P.,  on  moral  reason,  136. 

History,  is  it  an  exact  science?  69;  scope  of 
philosophy  of,  102. 

Hobbes,  on  free-will,  78;  on  origin  of  moral 
distinctions,  117-119;  on  veracity,  416; 
on  benevolence,  429. 

Honor,  chapter  on,  237-242;  product  of 
society,  237 ;  import  of  name  of,  237 ;  lim- 
ited community  supjwsed  by,  238-239; 
basis  of,  238-239;  indefiniteness  of,  238- 
239 ;  motives  not  respected  by,  239 ;  rela- 
tion of,  to  feelings  and  purposes,  240; 
defects  of,  241;  why  attractive  to  the 
moralist,  241-242. 

Hooker,  on  relation  of  appetite  to  will,  94; 
on  origin  of  moral  distinctions,  126. 

Hopkins,  on  subjective  good,  33;  on  self- 
love,  35 ;  on  conscience,  244. 

Human  intellect,  see  author's  work  on, 
respecting  relation  of  freedom  of  will  to 
law  of  causation,  67;  see  author's  work 
on,  respecting  relation  between  process 
and  product,  92. 

Hume,  on  nature  of  the  will,  61 ;  on  moral 
sense,  136;  on  beauty  of  virtue,  206. 

Husband,  authority  of,  471. 

Ilutcheson,  on  moral  sense,  136,  181 ;  on 
nature  of  obligation,  161;  on  beauty  of 
virtue,  206. 

Ignorance,  form  of  want,  437-440. 
Inalienability  of  natural  rights,  what,  402- 

403;  over-statement  of  doctrine  of,  403- 

404. 
Inconceivable,  definition  of,  66. 
Individual,  ethical  growth  of,  218. 
Individuality,  an  attribute  of  man,  445-446; 

consequences  of,  446-447. 
Induction,  required  by  ethical  codes,  306; 

materials     for,    306-307;    Includes    tact, 

307. 
Infancy,  knowledge  acquired  during,  176, 

176. 
Instinct,  impulses  of,  how  related  to  law  of 

desire,  30,  32. 


INDEX, 


571 


Instruction,  how  related  to  diacovery  of 
moral  relations,  145. 

Intellect,  relation  of,  to  moral  nature,  20; 
laws  of,  necessary,  97;  moral  character 
of  acts  of,  108;  chapter  on,  112-132;  ac- 
tivity of,  in  moral  phenomena,  112 ;  func- 
tions of,  112 ;  moral  reason,  how  related 
to,  136;  an  element  of  conscience,  245- 
246;  duty  towards,  chapter  on,  345-350; 
duties  of,  respecting  ethical  truth,  349, 
350. 

Intention,  direction  of,  203. 

Intermediate  theory  of  government,  492- 
493. 

Intuitive  power,  how  affected  by  instruc- 
tion, 226. 

Janet,  on  nature  of  obligation,  160;  on  in- 
tuitional theory,  177 ;  on  direction  of  the 
intention,  203. 

Jebb,  John,  on  self-love,  35. 

Jesuitism,  relation  of,  to  author's  doctrine 
of  action,  200,  202. 

Jouffroy  on  intuitional  theory  of  Price,  177, 
178. 

Justice,  nature  of,  276,413;  obligation  to, 
277;  duty  of,  and  law  of  benevolence, 
385-387;  Justinian's  definition  of,  413; 
various  significations  of,  413-414;  place 
of,  among  virtues,  414-415. 

Kant,  on  division  of  faculties,  59 ;  on  cate- 
gorical imperative,  136, 159;  characterizes 
a  person,  142;  different  interpretations  of 
ethical  theory  of,  162;  relation  of,  to 
Spencer,  163;  strife  between  happiness 
and  virtue,  how  adjusted  by,  170,  270- 
271 ;  objection  of,  to  theory  of  purpose, 
replied  to  by  Trendelenburg,  171;  ethi- 
cal theory  or,  emphasizes  authority,  171 ; 
on  nature  of  moral  impulse,  174-175 ;  on 
will  and  sensibility,  175;  ethical  theory 
of,  how  related  to  religion,  183;  on  prac- 
tical reason,  183 ;  ethical  theory  of,  how 
related  to  design,  204;  on  moral  goodness, 
212;  on  good  will,  317;  on  justice,  415. 

Knowledge,  natural  impulses  to,  345. 

Knox,  Alexander,  on  self-love,  35. 

Koran,  Mill  on  ethics  of,  290. 

Law,  moral  influence  of,  224;  chapter  on, 
502-511 ;  duty  of  obedience  to,  515-520. 

Law  of  nature,  possible  relation  of  God  to, 
564. 

Leibnitz,  on  love  of  concupiscence,  and  be- 
nevolence, 34. 

Lewes,  G.  H,,  on  nature  of  the  will,  61 ;  use 
of  will,  90;  on  origin  of  moral  distinction, 
121. 

Liberty,  right  to,  400;  proper  subjects  of, 
408-409. 

Life,  strength  of  desire  of,  338-339;  value 
of,  under  theism,  339-340;  preservation 
of,  341-343;  right  to,  in  what  sense  inal- 
ienable, 343;  natural  right  to,  400;  de- 
fence, 406-407. 

Literature,  effects  of  certain  forms  of,  on 
passions,  336. 

Locke,  on  relation  of  desire  to  action  con- 
ditioning enjoyment,  25;  on  division  of 
faculties,  58 ;  on  the  will  and  desire,  58 ; 
definition  of  free  will,  78;  on  idea  of 
power,  87 ;  on  explanation  of  moral  law, 


116 ;  three  laws  of,  162 ;  on  simple  ideas, 
176;  on  law  of  opinion,  238,  440. 

Lotteries,  ventures  in,  358;  in  fairs,  358- 
359. 

Lotze,  on  differences  in  pleasure,  46 ;  on 
morality  and  selfishness,  168;  on  Kant's 
theory  of  the  relation  between  happiness 
and  virtue,  179. 

Louis  XIV.,  remark  of,  488. 

Love,  Coleridge  on,  463. 

Malebrahche  on  beauty  of  virtue,  206. 

Man  a  moral  person,  chapter  on,  19-42. 

Manners,  how  related  to  morals,  194,  195, 
207 ;  variations  of  Chinese  in,  195. 

Marriage,  nature  of,  477;  permanent  obli- 
gation of,  478. 

Martineau,  James,  on  differences  in  pleas- 
ure, 46;  on  relation  of  faith  in  duty  to 
theism,  151;  on  nature  of  obligation,  163; 
on  Butler's  ethical  theory,  186;  on  mean- 
ing of  conscience,  187. 

Marvel,  Andrew,  anecdote  concerning,  68. 

Mathematics,  metaphysics  of,  129. 

Maudsley,  H.,  use  of  will,  90. 

McCosh,  on  self-love,  35 ;  on  moral  reason, 
136. 

Merit,  sense  of,  explained,  163;  society  pre- 
supposed by,  163-164 ;  how  related  to  ac- 
tions and  feelings,  164 ;  emotion  of,  not 
explained  by  intuitional  theory,  174-175; 
sense  of,  how  modified,  228-229. 

Method,  analytic,  division  of  moral  science 
given  by,  5-6;  ethical  processes  treated 
according  to,  150. 

Method,  synthetic,  begins  with  moral  sci- 
ence, 9;  includes  psychology,  10;  pro- 
ceeds to  ethics,  10;  ethical  processes 
treated  according  to,  150. 

Meyer,  Jiirgen  Bona,  on  Kant's  classifica- 
tion of  faculties,  59. 

Mill,  James,  on  nature  of  will,  61. 

Mill,  J.  S.,  on  definition,  1;  on  nature  of 
pleasure,  45 ;  on  differences  in  pleasure, 
45;  definition  of  utility,  48;  on  nature  of 
the  will,  61;  on  freedom  of  will,  and  sci- 
ence of  history,  69 ;  distinguishes  between 
fatalist  and  necessitarian,  81;  on  defects 
in  Christian  ethics,  289-290;  on  political 
services  of  the  prophets,  295. 

Milton  on  fallen  spirits,  29;  on  indulgence 
of  appetites,  328. 

Modesty,  duty  of,  333. 

Moral  feefings,  chapter  on,  152-164;  place 
of,  in  ethical  theory,  152;  education  and 
development  of,  153-155,  218 ;  moral  feel- 
ings and  judgments,  chapter  on,  217-222; 
relation  of,  to  circumstances,  217. 

Moral  good,  defined,  144. 

Moral  law,  supremacy  of,  148 ;  how  related 
to  will  of  God,  148;  relation  of  interpre- 
tation of,  to  will  of  God,  151. 

Moral  nature,  how  misconceived,  19-20;  not 
a  special  faculty,  20;  involves  feeling, 
will,  and  intellect,  20;  elements  of,  138; 
of  other  men,  how  discovered,  147. 

Moral  person,  chapter  on,  19-42. 

Moral  relation,  evidence  for,  113-115 ;  origin 
of,  115 ;  not  in  civil  law,  115-119 ;  or  in  so- 
ciety, 119-125;  or  in  will  of  God,  125-128; 
objections  to  independence  of,  128-132; 
chapter  on  origin  and  nature  of,  133-151 ; 
alleged  simplicity  of,  133-137 ;  how  related 


672 


INDEX. 


to  moral  Bense,  135 ;  to  self-conBclouBness 
and  will,  137 ;  to  voluntary  acts  of  apirit- 
ual  beings,  139 ;  when  tried  by  man's  nat- 
ural capacities,  141 ;  relation  of,  to  end  of 
existence,  143 ;  knowledge  of,  and  instruc- 
tion in,  145;  standard  of,  147;  recapitu- 
lation of  theory  of,  149;  objections  to 
author's  theory  of,  replies  and  counter 
objections,  chapter  on,  165-187 ;  processes 
suppose  impossible  acts  of  reflection,  165 ; 
reply,  165-166;  moral  distinctions  too 
early  originated,  166;  reply,  167;  objec- 
tion, moral,  resolved  into  selfish  relations, 
168;  reply,  168-169;  objection,  sense  of 
obligation  not  explained  by,  170;  reply, 
170-171;  objection,  supposes  an  actual 
trial  of  right  and  wrong,  171 ;  reply,  171 ; 
objections  to  intuitional  theory,  171-181 ; 
unnecessary,  172;  contradicts  testimony 
of  consciousness,  172 ;  and  is  self -contra- 
dictory, 173,  176;  superadds  superfluous 
relation,  173;  reply,  173;  refutation  of, 
174;  cannot  account  for  moral  emotions, 
174;  confounds  intuitional  with  rapidly 
formed  judgments,  175;  impracticable, 
177 ;  violates  desire  for  well-being,  178- 
179;  introduces  strife  between  impulses, 
180. 

Moral  ruler,  influence  of  belief  in  Q-od  as, 
547-549. 

Moral  science,  defined,!;  scientific  and  pop- 
ular knowledge  of,  2;  supposes  practical 
application,  2;  how  related  to  logic  and 
ajsthetics,  2 ;  ideal,  4;  and  actual,  4;  rela- 
tion of,  to  ethics,  7 ;  how  divided,  7 ;  rela- 
tion of,  to  psychology,  7-8;  and  philoso- 
phy, 8-9;  and  theology,  8-9;  how  treated 
eynthetically,  9-10;  utility  of  study  of, 
13-14 ;  influence  of  revelation  upon,  15-16; 
study  of,  and  faith  in  Christianity,  16. 

Moral  sense,  nature  of,  135, 181 ;  how  relatekl 
to  intellect,  181 ;  defects  of,  182. 

Moral  sentiments,  place  of,  in  ethical  the- 
ory, 152. 

Morality,  in  what  sense  eternal,  214-215; 
relations  of,  confliied  to  inner  activities, 
215 ;  uncertainty  of,  how  related  to  law  of 
benevolence,  390,  391. 

Morally  perfect,  influence  of  belief  in  God 
as,  546. 

Motive,  a  condition  of  choosing,  80 ;  am- 
biguity in,  80. 

Mozley,  J.  B.,  on  morality  of  Old  Testa- 
ment, 297. 

Mil  Her,  Dr.  Julius,  on  character  as  related 
to  will,  105. 

Napoleon  signing  death-warrant  of  Due 
d'Eughien,  97- 

Nature,  man's  duty  towards,  chapter  on, 
539-542. 

Necessitarian,  how  related  to  fatalist  accord- 
ing to  J.  S.  Mill,  81. 

Neighbor,  deflnition  of,  379 ;  why  we  should 
love  him,  380;  love  to,  as  ourselves,  381. 

Newman,  J.  H.,  on  relation  of  faith  in  duty 
to  theism,  151. 

Non-resistance,  doctrine  of,  370-371,  503. 

Objects,  how  related  to  sensibility,  21 ;  as 

cause  of  jjleasure,  26. 
ObligaUou,  e:i^plauation  of  feeling  of,  154- 


163;  emotion  or  judgment?  154;  element* 
ary  form  of,  154-155;  sense  of,  and  fu- 
ture activity,  155;  felt  towards  a  person, 
155;  feeling  of,  unique,  156;  claims  of 
others  originally  respected  by,  158;  terms 
for,  in  various  languages,  158;  not  ex- 
plained by  external  symbols,  158;  mys- 
tery of ,  159;  Kant's  explanation  of,  159; 
explanations  of  Warburton,  Paley,  Janet, 
Austin,  Thomas  Brown,  Hutcheson, 
Shaftesbury,  Froude,  Wollaston,  Her- 
bert Spencer,  and  James  Martiueau,  159- 
163 ;  how  related  to  actions  and  feelings, 
164 ;  not  explained  by  intuitional  theory, 
174,  175 ;  sense  of,  how  related  to  author- 
ity  of  our  fellows,  227,  228. 

Occam,  William^  on  origin  of  moral  distinc- 
tions, 125. 

Office,  trust  of,  525-526. 

Oxenstiern,  Chancellor,  remark  of,  on  gov- 
ernment, 516. 

Paley,  definition  of  instinct,  32;  on  dif- 
ferences  in  pleasures,  45;  definition  of 
utility,  48;  result  of  purpose  of,  in  his 
university  career,  95 ;  on  origin  of  moral 
distinctions,  125 ;  on  nature  of  obligation, 
159 ;  on  sexual  vice,  335. 

Pardon,  lawfulness  of,  509-510. 

Parent,  duty  of,  towards  children,  482-485. 

Parental  relation,  basis  for,  481. 

Parr,  Dr.  Samuel,  on  justice,  415. 

Pascal,  success  of,  in  mathematical  study, 
225. 

Paternal  theory  of  government,  492. 

Patriotism,  duty  of,  513-514,  521-522. 

Paul  on  divorce,  479-482. 

Penalty,  duty  of  acceptance  of,  for  violated 
law,  519. 

Personal  affections,  chapter  on,  444-463; 
characterizations  of,  444;  in  what  sense 
moral,  444-445;  how  related  to  benevo- 
lence, 447-453. 

Pfleiderer,  on  relation  of  pleasure  to  duty, 
179. 

Philosophy,  questions  of  will,  how  related 
to,  61;  objections  of,  to  reality  of  will, 
65-69 ;  replies  to,  65-69. 

Physics,  relation  of  discoveries  of,  to  rec- 
ognition of  God,  151. 

Pity,  impulse  to,  436. 

Plato,  theory  of  moral  sense  suggested  by, 
136;  on  beauty  of  virtue,  206;  ethics  of , 
291 ;  on  justice,  415. 

Pleasures,  relation  of,  to  emotions,  22;  dif- 
ferences in,  45. 

Pliny,  story  in  letters  of,  425. 

Plutarch  on  self -approval  and  self-reproach, 
153. 

Political  duties,  distinguished  from  civU, 
522-523. 

Positivisi,  on  freedom  of  will,  and  science 
of  history,  60,  73;  a  priori  metaphysics 
of,  151. 

Power,  intuitive,  aided  by  instruction  and 
discipline,  225. 

Practical  reason,  theory  of,  explained  and 
criticised,  183-184. 

Prayer,  nature  and  influences  of,  562-565; 
appropriateness  of,  to  conditions  of  life, 
504-565. 

Price,  on  theory  of  moral  reason,  136 ;  rela- 
tion of,  to  theory  of  categorical  impera* 


INDEX. 


573 


tive,  137;  intuitional  theory  of ,  177,204; 
on  justice,  415. 

Promises,  fulfilment  of,  420-421;  extorted 
by  threats,  425-426;  are  they  always 
binding?  426-427. 

Property,  duty  of  acquisition  of,  364-367; 
teaching  of  New  Testament  respecting, 
366-367;  right  to,  367;  natural  right  to, 
400;  how  defined,  410-411. 

Prudence,  maxims  of,  how  related  to  mor- 
als, 196-197 ;  duty  of,  320. 

Psychology,  relation  of,  to  moral  science, 
10;  analysis  of  moral  nature,  19;  analysis 
of  sensibility  begins  with,  20 ;  relation  of, 
to  questions  of  will,  61;  scope  of,  102; 
a  prion  metaphysics  of  every  school  of, 
151. 

Punishment,  various  forms  of,  503-504 ;  ef- 
fectiveness of,  505;  moral  relations  of, 
506-507;  limits  of,  507-508;  capital,  508; 
ends  of,  509 ;  modern  theories  of,  509. 

Purity,  Christian  estimate  of,  278. 

Purpose,  object  of  moral  approval,  100;  ex- 
planation of  particular  experiences,  100; 
man  responsible  for,  101;  relation  of,  to 
moral  quality,  261. 

Reasoning,  place  of,  in  decision  of  questions 
of  duty,  257,  258. 

Redeemer,  influence  of  belief  in,  549-550. 

Reform,  conditions  of  success  in,  440-443. 

Reformation  of  character,  and  speculative 
morals,  233-236. 

Reflection,  principles  of,  defined,  185. 

Reid,  on  classification  of  sensibilities,  44; 
on  division  of  faculties,  59 ;  on  theory  of 
moral  reason,  136;  on  definition  of  con- 
science, 243. 

Relationship,  what  presupposed  by  benevo- 
lence, 392-393. 

Religion,  moral  Influence  of,  224;  how  re- 
lated to  morality,  551-552;  duty  of  prog- 
ress in  science  of,  556. 

Religious  activities,  duty  of,  557-558. 

Religious  affections,  moral  worth  of,  544. 

Religious  duty,  how  far  enforced  by  con- 
science, 550-551 ;  chapter  on,  553-565. 

Religious  feeling,  duty  of,  556-557;  forms 
of,  557;  duty  of  culture  of,  557. 

Renouvier  on  freedom  of  will,  and  science, 
76. 

Resentment,  duty  relating  to,  455-459 ;  But- 
ler on,  456. 

Responsibility,  of  men  for  opinion,  108, 198- 
199;  education  of  child  in,  219;  of  man 
for  the  future,  331;  sense  of,  in  office- 
holder and  voter,  526-527. 

Revolution,  when  justifiable,  520. 

Rights,  nature  of,  367 ;  duty  of  defence  of, 
368-371 ;  chapter  on  doctrine  of,  396-405 ; 
definition  of,  398;  relation  of,  to  duties, 
398-400;  natural,  401;  universal,  401;  in- 
alienable, 402 ;  over-statement  of  doctrine 
of,  402-403 ;  capacity  of,  for  enforcement, 
404-405;  chapter  on  different  classes  of, 
406-415;  to  life,  406-407;  to  liberty,  407- 
408;  to  property,  409-410;  adventitious, 
412;  natural,  how  related  to  government, 
490-491 ;  objection  to,  491-492. 

Right  and  wrong,  variation  in  definition  of 
terms  of,  208-209 ;  limitable  to  a  solitary 
Individual,  209;  how  defined,  so  limited, 
210;  how  affected  by  introduction  of  other 


beings,  210;  when  the  Supreme  1b  consid- 
ered, 211;  terms  of,  applied  to  different 
subject-matter,  212 ;  primarily  only  to  the 
voluntary  purposes,  212. 

Rightness  of  different  virtues  not  explicable 
by  intuitional  theory,  177;  absolute  and 
relative  explained,  213-214. 

Rome,  influence  of  conquests  of,  499. 

Ruskin  on  beauty  of  virtue,  206. 

Scepticism,  influence  of  beMef  in,  556. 

Schleiermacher  on  relation  between  happi- 
ness and  virtue,  271. 

Scholastics,  maxim  of,  on  desire,  29;  on  dis- 
tinctions of  conscience,  247. 

Science,  assumptions  of,  395. 

Scriptures,  teaching  of,  on  law  of  benevo- 
lence, 383-384. 

Self,  moral,  defined,  313-314;  inspection  of, 
when  useful,  360. 

Self-approbation,  belief  in  reality  of  will 
implied  by,  64 ;  feelings  of,  how  explained, 
153-154;  influence,  155;  affirmable  of  ac- 
tions and  feelings,  164;  emotion  of,  not 
explained  by  intuitional  theory,^174,  175; 
how  modified,  227. 

Self-consciousness,  how  related  to  discovery 
of  moral  relations,  145. 

Self-control,  early  lessons  in,  219. 

Self-defence,  doctrine  of,  369;  not  always 
justifiable,  369,  370;  relation  of,  to  Chris- 
tian ethics,  370-371. 

Self -judgment,  training  of,  process  of,  146. 

Self-reliance,  duty  of,  364;  tendency  to- 
wards, in  ethical  theories,  391-392. 

Self-love,  relation  of,  to  love  of  neighbor 
and  of  God,  34-35 ;  confused  with  desire 
of  happiness,  37;  d^nition  of,  313. 

Self-reproach,  belief  in  reality  of  will  im- 
plied by,  64;  feeling  of,  how  explained, 
153-155;  influence  of,  155;  affirmable  of 
actions  &nd  feelings,  164 ;  emotion  of,  not 
explained  by  intuitional  theory,  174, 175; 
how  modified,  227. 

Self-respect,  duty  of,  371-372 ;  basis  of,  373. 

Selfishness,  definition  of,  168. 

Sensibility,  analysis  of,  20-42 ;  involved  in 
moral  nature,  20;  other  names  for,  20,  25; 
act  of,  what,  21 ;  relation  of,  to  act  of  in- 
tellect, 21;  opposing  views,  22;  expe- 
rience of,  what,  22 ;  what  distinguishable 
in  exercise  of,  25 ;  as  simple  and  complex, 
38;  primary  and  secondary,  39;  asso- 
ciated, 40;  two  classes  of  secondary,  40; 
strength  of,  41 ;  number  and  complexity 
of,  41 ;  sensibilities  classified,  chapter  on, 
43-56;  classification  of  Drs.  Reid  and 
Stewart,  Sir  William  Hamilton,  Upham, 
Whewell,  44;  differences  of,  44,  55-56;  as 
emotions  passive,  49 ;  dependent  on  atten- 
tion, 50;  how  affected  by  repetition,  50; 
apparent  exception,  51;  active,  53;  as 
modified  by  the  will,  chapter  on,  57-76; 
distinction  between  acts  of,  and  those  of 
will,  85 ;  states  of,  how  related  to  the  will, 
105;  capacity  of,  to  engross  the  attention, 
111;  moral  sense  a  faculty  of,  135;  rela- 
tion of,  to  theory  of  categorical  impera- 
tive, 137 ;  an  element  of  conscience,  245, 
246 ;  differences  in  rank  of,  379. 

Sentimental  morality,  what,  388. 

Sentimentalists,  doctrine  of,  on  special  per- 
sonal affections,  448. 


674 


INDEX. 


Sexuality,  vice  of,  and  its  consequences, 
335. 

Shaftesbury  on  moral  sense,  136;  criticised 
by  Warburton,  161 ;  on  beauty  of  virtue, 
206. 

Shairp  on  improvement  of  ethical  stand- 
ards, 233. 

Sidgwick  on  differencesJn  pleasure,  46. 

Sin,  universal  recognition  of,  550. 

Smith,  Adam,  on  origin  of  moral  distinc- 
tions, 119;  theory  of,  compared  with 
Spencer's,  122. 

Smith,  Goldwin,  on  freedom  of  will,  and 
science  of  history,  69. 

Social  influences,  chapter  on,  223-236; 
classes  of,  223. 

Social  movement,  conditions  of  success  in, 
440-443. 

Society,  man's  relation  to,  396-398. 

Sociology,  scope  of,  102;  on  altruism,  429- 
430. 

Socrates,  death  of,  228. 

Sovereignty,  doctrine  of,  497;  in  United 
States,  498-499. 

Spain,  influence  of  conquests  of,  500. 

Sparta,  code  of,  424 ;  theory  of  state  of,  494. 

Speculation  defined,  356-357;  compared 
with  gambling,  357-358. 

Spencer,  Herbert,  on  nature  of  the  will,  61 ; 
on  freedom  of  will,  and  science  of  liistory, 
69;  use  of  will,  90;  on  origin  of  moral 
distinctions,  121 ;  ethical  theory  compared 
with  Adam  Smith's,  122;  on  generation 
of  moral  ideas,  123 ;  examination  of  theory 
of,  on  origin  of  moral  distinctions,  124; 
on  nature  of  obligation,  162 ;  relation  of, 
to  Kant,  163. 

Spinoza,  defines  desire,  30. 

Standard,  internal  development  of,  220-221 ; 
variability  of,  229;  explanation  of,  231; 
conditions  of  improvement  in,  232-236; 
influence  of  education  on,  233;  of  refoc- 
mation  of  character  and  life  on,  233-236. 

State,  chapter  on  functions  and  authority 
of,  487-501;  relation  of,  to  family,  487; 
origin  of  authority  of,  489;  different 
views  of  functions  of,  489-496;  how  re- 
lated to  natural  rights,  490-492;  relation 
of,  to  general  and  moral  culture,  493-494; 
educational  and  ethical  influences  of,  494, 
495 ;  how  controlled  by  public  sentiment, 
495-496 ;  characteristics  of,  496-499 ;  duty 
of,  in  defending  its  territory,  497;  consti- 
tution of,  501;  legal  duties  of,  502-503; 
intentions  considered  by,  507;  chapter  on 
civil  and  political  duties  to,  512-528; 
necessarily  an  organism,  523-524;  ancient 
and  modern  idea  of,  527-528. 

Stephen,  Leslie,  on  nature  of  the  will,  61 ; 
on  freedom  of  will,  and  science  of  his- 
tory, 69;  use  of  will,  90;  on  origin  of 
moral  distinctions,  121. 

Stewart,  Dugald,  on  object  of  feeling,  26; 
on  division  of  active  principles,  27;  on 
self-love  and  desire  of  happiness,  37 ;  on 
classification  of  sensibilities,  44;  on  divis- 
ion of  faculties,  59;  on  moral  reason,  136; 
on  nature  of  obligation,  174. 

Stoicism,  self-culture  of,  318;  worth  of  indi- 
vidual man  according  to,  384. 

Suicide,  agnoHticinm  on  lawfulness  of,  278; 
criminality  of,  340. 

Sympathy,  nature  of  capacity  for,  377-379 ; 


presupposed  by  benevolence,  392 ;  neces- 
sity of ,  431;  duties  relating  to,  453-455; 
how  related  to  duty,  470-471. 

Tappan  on  division  of  faculties,  59. 

Taxes,  duty  in  payment  of,  514. 

Taylor,  Jeremy,  on  origin  of  moral  distinc- 
tions, 126. 

Tennyson  on  prayer,  565. 

Testament,  Old,  ethics  of,  contrasted  with 
Christian,  292-295 ;  relation  of,  to  progress, 
295;  alleged  immorality  of  precepts  of, 
295-299 ;  teachings  of,  299-300, 

Theism,  doctrine  of,  how  related  to  sociol- 
ogy. 76 ;  and  how  related  to  categorical 
imperative,  162;  gives  value  to  life,  339, 
340. 

Theology,  ethics  resolved  into,  151. 

Tolerance,  defined,  264;  to  what  questions 
limited,  264-265;  special  meaning  of,  265; 
Coleridge  on,  265. 

Toleration,  chapter  on,  260-265. 

Trendelenburg  on  end  of  existence,  143;  on 
obligation,  157 ;  on  morality  and  selfish- 
ness, 168 ;  reply  of,  to  objections  of  Kant 
and  Aristotle  on  theory  of  purpose,  171. 

Truth,  each  man's  judgment  of,  final  for 
himself,  197;  self-evident,  how  obtained, 
222;  of  succeeding  generations,  226;  ethi- 
cal bearing  of  history  of,  on  law  of 
benevolence,  384. 

Ueberweg  on  relation  between  pleasure  and 

duty, 179. 
United  States  not  an  exception  to  law  of 

sovereignty,  498-499. 
Upham,  Thomas  C,  on  classification  of  the 

sensibilities,  44;  on  division  of  faculties, 

59. 
Utility,  how  related  to  worth  and  value,  48. 
Utilitarians,  Ueberweg's  criticism  of,  179. 

Value,  how  related  to  worth  and  utility,  48. 
Vane,  Sir  Harry,  execution  of,  227. 
Veracity,  duty  of,  how  related  to  law  of 

benevolence,  385-386,  417-419 ;  Wollaston 

on,  415;  chapter  on  duties  of,  416-427; 

nature  of  duty  of,  416-417;    grounds  of 

duty  of,  421-423;   habit  of,  424;  right  of 

deviation  from,  424-425. 
Vice,  form  of  want,  437-440. 
Vivisection,  morality  of,  536-538. 
Vocabulary  of  moral  relations  universal, 

114. 
Volition,    appellations   for,    57;    different 

from   those  of   desire  and  volition,  63; 

effects    of,    chapter   on,   92-102;    moral 

quality  belongs  to,  140. 

Wace,  H.  D.,  on  relation  of  faith  in  duty 

to  theism,  151 ;  on  the  desire  of  happiness 

as  taught  In  the  Scriptures,  272. 
Wollaston,  H.   D.,   Warburton  on  ethical 

theory  of,  161 ;  on  truth,  415-422. 
Walpole,  Sir  Robert,  axiom  of,  68. 
Wants,  meaning   of,  363;    relation  of,  to 

property,  364-367. 
War,  aggressive,  when  lawful,  499-600;  not 

an  unmixed  evil,  500. 
Warburton  on  nature  of  obligation,  159, 161 ; 

on  Shaftesbury's  theory  of  virtue,  161. 
Ward,  William  George,  on  relation  of  faith 

in  duty  to  theism,  151. 


INDEX. 


575 


Wayland,  Francis,  on  human  responsibility, 
443. 

Whewell  on  classification  of  sensibilities,  44. 

Will,  relation  of,  to  moral  nature,  20;  ac- 
tivity not  limited  to,  54 ;  relation  of,  to  acts 
of  sensibility,  57;  appellations  for,  57; 
nature  and  conditions  of,  57;  place  of,  in 
earlier  divisions  of  faculties,  58;  place  of, 
in  division  of  Locke,  Edwards,  Reid, 
Brown,  Stewart,  Hamilton,  Kant,  and  Up- 
ham,  58, 59 ;  result  on  supposition  man  was 
destitute  of,  60 ;  questions  concerning,  how 
related  to  psychology  and  philosophy,  62 ; 
belief  in,  how  related  to  moral  emotions 
and  civil  government,  64-65;  objections 
to  reality  of,  65-69 ;  how  related  to  final 
cause,  66 ;  to  experience,  67 ;  freedom  of, 
and  science  of  history,  69 ;  and  foreknowl- 
edge of  God,  70;  and  science,  73;  denied 
by  positivist  and  evolutionist,  73 ;  implied 
by  intelligence,  74 ;  relation  of,  to  sociol- 
ogy, 74;  phenomena  of,  and  necessary, 
distinguishable,  75 ;  recognized  by  litera- 


ture, 75;  will  defined,  chapter  on,  77-91; 
Hobbes's  definition  of,  78 ;  Locke,  ColllnB, 
and  Edwards  on,  78;  applicable  to  inten- 
tions, 79;  relation  of ,  to  motives,  80-81; 
and  moral  qualities,  82 ;  Edwards's  argu- 
ment against,  82;  conditions  of  exercise 
of,  83;  activity  of,  unique,  84;  acts  of, 
contrasted  with  those  of  knowledge  and 
sensibility,  85;  why  so  unfamiliar,  86; 
how  far  explicable,  88-89 ;  various  senses 
of,  89;  relation  of,  to  conservation  of 
energy,  90;  force  of  directive,  90;  free- 
dom of,  not  implied  by  high  type  of 
mind,  91;  result  of  act  of,  92-93;  how 
related  to  appetite,  94 ;  to  moral  relations, 
101,  107,  138;  difference  in  intensity  of 
activities  of,  106,  110;  permanent  state 
of,  106,  110 ;  Kant's  theory  of,  136. 

Wordsworth  on  child's  perception  of  duty, 
146 ;  on  feelings  as  opposed  to  arguments 
in  matters  of  duty,  257. 

Worship,  man's  capacity  for,  545;  duty  of, 
545-546,  559-563. 


V 


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